VOLATILE
by ravendarkholme23
Summary: "You didn't see that coming?" "Obviously not. If I had, I wouldn't be on my ass in the freakin' snow." In which, a girl of unimaginable power - and unimaginable age - manages to gain the attention of a Sokovian speedster with her sassy attitude and bright blue eyes.{Avengers: Age of Ultron} {Pietro Maximoff / OC} {COMPLETE}
1. PROLOGUE

**_THE WEAPON'S CREATION_**

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 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

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 ** _SHELLEY HENNIG_** _AS_ _ **AMALIA SCHMIDT |**_ _TESS ROGERS_ _ **| TESSERACT**_

 ** _[HYDRA'S WEAPON]_**

 ** _"_** _THERE WAS NEVER A TIME WHEN I WASN'T A WEAPON. EVEN WHEN I BECAME A PART OF THE AVENGERS, I WAS STILL A WEAPON JUST ONE FIGHTING FOR A DIFFERENT CAUSE. BUT I DON'T CARE, BECAUSE I FINALLY FOUND A HOME WHERE I WAS MORE THAN AN ENHANCED SOLDIER_ _ **"**_

 **XXXXX**

Tess Rogers was never normal. There was no part of her life when she wasn't raised to be a weapon, to fulfil the purpose in which she was created for. She didn't have a name either, until she was able to escape her 'home' where they poked and prodded her with needles to find the answers to their many questions about their experiment.

Their little weapon.

In 1940, Tess was five when her father, Johann Schmidt, forced Abraham Erskine to inject both himself and his young daughter with the Super-Soldier Serum. Erskine agreed – much to his displeasure – and he told the five-year-old, if she ever escaped, to head to America and look for him. Schmidt took an early version of the formula, which indeed gave him enhanced strength, but also demonstrated severe side effects.

Schmidt lost his hair, his skin turned a deep red, and his face and head became deformed, turning into a grotesque skull-like appearance. Tess' serum was more developed and caused her to lose the use of her arms and legs for a time and to age fifteen years in less than two. Her body, now capable of surviving the serum, became that of an adult.

She became faster, better and stronger.

But like her father's malevolent personality enhancement, Tess' anger increased as her patience lowered. She became a ticking time-bomb of a girl and everyone was wary of her.

In 1943, when Johann Schmidt found the Tesseract he used its power on his daughter, who only _appeared_ to be in her twenties, forcing her to endure the never-ending torture. And finally, made her the first ever Enhanced. Still bitter that the serum worked better on his daughter, Schmidt trained her to become a soulless killing machine with no love offered to her. Unless, of course, she killed those he wanted dead.

Tess was originally known as Amalia Schmidt, a weapon of mass destruction who could disintegrate an entire fleet of soldiers with a flick of her wrist. Tess had a name in the facility, one that she hated; Tesseract. She preferred to just be called Amalia by the HYDRA soldiers who opened the cell door to give her food – not that they really spoke to her. She was meant to be emotionless, she was meant to listen without question but even for a five-year-old child that was force-grown into a twenty-year-old in two years, she had a conscience and understood right from wrong.

Tess decided to leave, to strike out on her own and to take Doctor Erskine up on his promise of America. After escaping the HYDRA base – with a small army of American soldiers, led by the Super Soldier, Captain America – a place that she had called home for only technically seven years – which was more than enough time to learn to hate it – she joined the Americans who had saved her and were fighting against the Germans and HYDRA. Tess became close to Steve Rogers after discovering Erskine's death, and he became the only person who was ever there for her and she became his sister.

Newly named Tess Rogers, Tesseract turned against HYRDA and helped demolish the organization. Using the powers given to her by the Red Skull; she unleased her full potential and became the weapon HYDRA intended her to be – however, the weapon just wasn't on their side. And after HYDRA's destruction, Tess believed they got everything they deserved but at the cost of almost seventy years of Steve and Tess' lives.

If only the little weapon remembered the first lesson she was ever taught: cut one head off, and another will grow in it's place.

 **XXXXX**

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 **I'M REWRITING** ** _VOLATILE_** **!**

 **I must admit, it's not much different but I wanted to write it just a bit better.**

 **~ Raven**


	2. ONE

**_HELL HATH NO FURY..._**

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 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** ** _Angel1D98_** **,** ** _NicoleR85_** **AND** _ **LuckyGo**_ **FOR SUPPORTING THE REWRITE OF THIS STORY. ENJOY!**

* * *

Tess Rogers repeatedly threw kicks and punches at the bag, hitting the stubborn material until it went flying off the hook, landing in a heap on the ground on the far side of the wall. There was a smoking hole in the bag, that went straight through and blue energy danced around the tear. Tess glanced down at her fist, which was glowing an intense blue and she grimaced.

For one day – for a single day – she wished she could pretend she was normal. That she wasn't created by one of the most powerful objects in the universe and wasn't one of very few Super Soldiers in existence.

Even being in the Avengers Tower, where Tess was the most accepted, she knew she was too different – too unruly. What if she lost control of her emotions, even for a moment? She could kill everyone in the Tower and she wouldn't be able to stop herself.

Tess felt indebted to her adoptive brother, Steve Rogers and that was the reasoning in why she stayed with the Avengers. Seventy years ago, Tess had joined the Americans and fought against the Nazis and specifically, against HYDRA, becoming like a sister to Steve Rogers. And when Steve was frozen in the ice, his sister lay beside him, loyal to the end.

Tess was awoken, fifty years after being in the ice, and lived for twenty years without Steve alone in a new world. Instead of hiding – instead of cowering in fear – Tess embraced her new life. She had always been a versatile creature, able to adapt exceptionally well to different environments and a temporary life without her older brother was simply a small hurdle in the scheme of her life.

Due to her powers, Tess didn't age a single year in the twenty years she was free and she remained the same youthful twenty-five year old she was. Steve woke up after seventy years in a modern world and they kept fighting against HYDRA, even when they didn't want to. They understood that it was their duty to fight against HYDRA and the Rogers siblings (though Tess wasn't really a 'Rogers') would never back down when they were about to face a challenge.

Tess was strong, physically and mentally, she had a range of powers, one in particular that was destructive enough to destroy a complete civilization, reducing it to ash in seconds. Tess had never been clear on what had actually happened to her when she was a child but in less than two years after the experiment, the five-year-old had been made into a genius, twenty-year-old Super Soldier.

She could disintegrate a group of HYDRA agents with a flick of her wrist.

She could worm her way into the minds of just about everyone, with the exception of extremely powerful telepaths.

She could teleport around the globe in under three seconds and she could project her thoughts into objects she could hold and use to her advantage.

And that was only a small amount of what the powerful woman could do. Even though she had been an infant, Tess had a photographic memory and could remember every test performed on her after the initial procedure. The burning sensation of the liquid in her veins, the cold edge of the knife digging into her stomach and worst of all; she could remember the scream of the woman who birthed her when Red Skull got tired of the woman.

Tess was told when she was 'twenty' that she could control a rare ability; chaos magic.

She became more dangerous over time, learning how to stop time and warp reality. But with all her powers, Tess could not forget what she heard or seen the day her mother was killed. Just as the Red Skull's malevolent nature became more prominent, Tess also had a change after being injected with a slightly more developed version of the Super-Soldier serum; her anger became her fatal flaw.

Tess zoned out, not realising when objects began to float and warp around her – metal beginning to twist into strange shapes, and the sand began to melt out of the bag. She continued to punch the bag, without hearing or seeing.

And still, she had been given no reprieve, much like the world's so-called mightiest heroes. The tests had only gotten harder and the stakes were even higher.

"Tess! Tess!" Steve's eyes were wide as he looked at the young woman he called his sister, her eyes unfocused and her face expressionless.

Steve's eyes widened considerably and he quickly grabbed her arms, placing her palms against his chest. The only way to stop Tess when she lost control was to either use the safe-word that would hurt her or to remind Tess where she was, that life was around her. Tess felt the steady beating of a heart under her hands and she shook her head, confused until she saw Steve.

Tess' eyes widened when she glimpsed the room she had partially destroyed. Shame colored her cheeks, "I am so sorry, Steve."

Steve wrapped her in his arms, "Hey, hey, it's okay. No one got hurt, it's fine." Steve smoothed down her hair and Tess sighed, "Come on, suit up. We think that Loki's scepter might be in the HYDRA base in Sokovia. It's the last base, meaning our last chance to get it."

Tess nodded, pursing her lips for a moment. "Give me a minute and I'll meet you all near the Quinjet."

Tess teleported quickly to her room and threw on her suit. Black leather pants, an old fashioned 'battle' corset and black, fingerless, buckled gloves that reached up to her elbows. Tess adjusted the three silver throwing knives at her waist and buckled the knee-high heeled leather boots she wore. The reflection of her bright blue eyes flashed at her in the mirror and in the next blink, Tess was in the Quinjet, ready to go to Sokovia.

Tess was more than happy to take down as many HYDRA soldiers as possible along the way on their mission to get back Loki's scepter.

 **XXXXX**

Tess mentally cursed the snow that stuck to her suit. It was cold and mushy and honestly served _no purpose_.

Tess couldn't physically get cold – a side-effect of her powers – but she could still be annoyed by it. Sokovia had an unfortunately large amount of snow and the entire country was entirely blanketed in white. Tess ran quickly, ducking behind a tree and then teleporting behind an unsuspecting HYDRA soldier.

"I hate HYDRA. They always pick really stupid places to set up shop…" Tess muttered and threw a psionic blast at another soldier. The man flew back and hit a tree with a satisfying crack. He struggled to sit up, only to be pushed back down as one of his friends flew into him. "I mean, how hard would it be to pick a deserted island in the tropics?"

" _Shit_!" Tony yelled as he flew into a barrier, Tess biting her tongue to stop her from laughing as her brother retorted, " _Language_."

" _JARVIS, what's the view from upstairs_?" Steve inquired and Tess zoned out JARVIS's answer as she concentrated her power to disintegrate a tank. The tank exploded, some stray shrapnel flying at Tess, who flicked her wrist with a bored expression.

A shield appeared over the young woman and she lifted a brow. "Sure don't make HYDRA tanks like they used to."

Thor spoke up, " _Strucker's technology is well beyond any other HYDRA base we have taken_."

Tess nodded, agreeing as she threw blasts, "Loki's scepter must be here. Only explanation why this place is worse than Fort Knox."

" _Yeah, I think we lost the element of surprise_ ," Clint stated as he saw more HYDRA soldiers coming out of the building.

" _Wait a second_ ," Tony interrupted, " _No one else is gonna deal with the fact that Cap just said 'language'_?"

" _I know_." Steve sighed as he threw his bike, " _It just slipped out_."

Tess called, " _So not the time, Stark_!"

In her brief lapse in concentration, Tess was roughly thrown into a tree by a HYDRA agent and Steve called out, " _Tess! Are you okay_?"

Tess groaned, but teleported the soldier into Natasha's path and stood, "I'm perfectly fine kicking HYDRA's ass, Stevie. No need to have a heart-attack."

Steve mumbled something under his breath as Tess ran closer to Clint. They stood near each other as Tess projected a psionic blast at four soldiers. Tess turned back to Clint and opened her mouth but both of them were thrown to the ground. Tess' head bounced slightly on the ground and she groaned, glaring at what knocked her over. A young man with silvery hair stood in front of them.

"You didn't see that coming?" The man's accent was deep, Sokovian and in the next second he was gone, leaving a trail of blue dust.

"Obviously not." Tess snarled speaking to empty air, her lip curling up from her teeth and her eyes flashed, "If I had, I wouldn't be on my ass in the freakin' snow." Tess quickly turned to Clint, "You okay here?"

Clint nodded and Tess stepped into a portal quickly, stepping out in front of the fast young man in a haze of vibrant blue energy and kicked out her leg, hitting him directly in the chest with the sharp heel of her boot. The young man landed in the snow and Tess moved closer, her eyes – dubbed 'Tesseract Blue' – narrowed on the man and her boot heel was dangerously close to crushing his throat. Ropes of blue energy wrapped around him, holding him in place. He seemed transfixed by her, his eyes darting to her eyes, her hair, her suit; and she turned her head, eyes flashing as she obviously sensed something was wrong.

She tapped her earpiece. "Two Enhanced in the field. Do not engage. I've got one here but I sense the other one is near you, Stark." Tess frowned at the lack of response. "Tony? Steve?"

The earpiece gave a pathetic buzz in response, completely shorted out and Tess couldn't even get a lock on her brother before a HYDRA soldier was firing at her. The blue-eyed woman shot a blast at the soldier, missing him by a mere centimeter. Her powers shot a rather large hole into a tree and Tess rolled her eyes. "Stay still, would you?"

Her second blast trapped the HYDRA agent against the tree trunk and she dropped the silver-haired man beside him without a second glance. Tess let out a huff of breath and stepped back into a bright blue portal, moving into the building in search of Stark.

The Enhanced man lay on the ground long after the ropes of energy dissolved. A look of amazement crossed over his face and he stood to touch the remaining energy on the tree. The contact caused the glowing blue energy to shoot out, latching onto him and allowing the soldier to drop to the ground with a grunt of pain.

It was an accident, but by touching the energy, the Enhanced man created a bond between himself and the hero named Tesseract. The man quickly dashed off to the building, to find his sister, neither him nor Tess realising what had happened.

 **XXXXX**

Tess walked out of the portal directly next to Tony, landing next to him. He looked apprehensive about touching the scepter and she gently alerted him of her presence, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"Shellhead." Tony didn't even make a comment about the nickname and Tess frowned in worry. "I tried to use the comms but it didn't work. Are you alright? Did you come close to the other Enhanced?"

Tony shook his head, a cocky smile replacing the apprehensive look, "I'm okay, Glow-Stick. The other Enhanced didn't come near me, I think she beat up Capsicle."

"She better not have."

The Stark man rolled his eyes at Tess' protective nature. "I'll meet you at the Quinjet. Don't take too long, grandma."

"I might be seventy years old and look like _this_ —" she gestured to her young face "—but I'm still your elder. Respect me, Anthony Edward Stark," Tess' tone was joking, but the use of his full name made Tess' heart hurt.

She missed Peggy Carter and Howard Stark so much.

Tony smirked, but the look didn't have the same spark as it usually did. Tess' eyes narrowed and she lifted a brow, watching silently as Tony walked out to collect his suit.

The man walked back over to Tess, saluted and flew out through the hole in the roof. She was going to use her mental manipulation to get him to tell her what was wrong but Tess knew that invading the personal space of her teammates was a big 'no-no.' A tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind, 'Howard did name you Tony's godmother.'

Sighing, Tess turned around and grabbed the scepter, without the use of an armor-clad hand. A spark of blue energy shot from the scepter and into Tess and she stumbled slightly, holding a hand to her chest.

Tess let out a cough, "Uh, _ouch_." She outstretched her arm, allowing her powers to hover the scepter in the air away from her. She eyed the scepter, a flash of _something_ appearing in her mind's eye.

 _A small yellow stone, floating in space amidst others. It was right beside the Tesseract_ —

" _Stop it_ ," Tess instructed the scepter aloud. "No mind tricks for you, little scepter." She paused, "And now I'm speaking to an inanimate object. I need some _serious_ help."

The young woman disappeared into a blue portal that consumed her form with a shake of her head. She _really_ didn't need to have a mental break right as they were finally getting a step ahead of the evils in the world.

Especially now that there were Enhanced on the field.

 **XXXXX**

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 **Tell me if this chapter is any better. I thought the kickass Tess last scene was good but way too unrealistic. So I changed it up to allow her more of a connection to Vision.**

 **Please review!**

 **~ Raven**


	3. TWO

**_WHO HAVETH THE POWER..._**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** ** _Angel1D98_** **,** ** _NicoleR85_** **AND** _ **LuckyGo.**_ **THANK YOU FOR REVIEWING. THIS CHAPTER IS REALLY SHORT AND IS A BIT MORE OF A FILLER.**

* * *

They finally had the scepter, all the work finally paying off. To celebrate, Tony hosted a party but Tess hid away in her room, preferring to research the Maximoff twins instead.

'He's fast and she's weird,' was how Maria Hill described them to Tess and Steve.

Tess had sarcastically asked if they were weirder than the original Enhanced was: _herself_. Tess really didn't need an answer. A small glass of alcohol sat next to her computer that had been brought to her by Tony but it hadn't been touched and Tess was almost certain that it wouldn't be drunk anytime soon. Tess, just like Steve, had to have an absurdly large amount of alcohol to get drunk but she barely drank at all.

Tess rolled her eyes, nudging the glass with her forefinger and wrinkled her nose at it.

Tess hated crowds _and_ parties _and_ just about anyone she hadn't met yet, which was just about everyone at one of Tony Stark's famous parties. Tess sighed and scrubbed her face, before she finally turned back to her files, reading all she could on Pietro and Wanda Maximoff.

 **XXXXX**

 _"Another drink…On me!" Bucky grinned, lifting his glass into the air. Tess rolled her eyes at the antics of her close friend while the entire bar cheered._

 _Even Steve rolled his eyes but was quickly caught up in the revelries of the men, who were simply glad that they were all still alive. Tess dipped her head, resting it on Steve's shoulder and she grinned._

 _"I…I love this," the newly-named Rogers muttered, her German accent still thick. She was desperately trying to lessen it during her time in America. It was mainly because the strong accent occasionally made the men flinch and every time they did, Tess winced as well._

 _Steve raised his brows in question, "The party?"_

 _"The_ freedom _," Tess corrected with a quick sigh. She tipped back her glass, not even reacting to the burn of the alcohol sliding down her throat. "And the alcohol that_ doesn't _taste like horse shit."_

 _"Cheers to that." Steve knocked back his glass and laughed at Bucky's antics on the dance floor. "Wait…you've tasted horse shit?"_

 _Tess rolled her eyes but didn't glare. This was far too much of a happy occasion for even the slightest amount of anger. "Shut up, Steven. Now, drinking contest?"_

 _"You can't beat me."_

 _"We'll see. I will…what do you American's say? Drink you under the table?"_

 **XXXXX**

Tess waited until everyone left the party and then trailed downstairs to meet up with the rest of the Avengers, trying to be as silent as possible. Everyone were still dressed up, aside from Tess, who was dressed in track-pants and a hoodie.

"Hey," Tess said quietly to Natasha as she entered, "What's going on?"

"They're trying to lift Thor's hammer," Natasha whispered to her best friend and Tess laughed, dropping down to sit beside Nat.

"But, it's a trick!" Clint cried, seeming to be having an argument with Thor.

"No, no, it's much more than that."

"Ah, 'whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the power!' Whatever man! It's a trick."

Tess laughed at Clint's retort. "Don't doubt it, Clint. Weren't you controlled by a magic-manipulating Asgardian at some point?" Clint shot her a look and Tess raised her hands, "All I'm saying is that what you call a 'trick,' others call everyday life."

"Thank you, Lady Tess," the Asgardian prince smiled at Tess before he turned back to Clint, who still looked doubtfully at the hammer. "Well please, be my guest." Thor waved his hand at the hammer and Clint stood.

Clint attempted to pick up the hammer, Mjölnir, from the table and failed. _Dismally_. Tony decided to pipe up and annoy Clint. "Smell the silent judgment?"

"Please, Stark, by all means," the archer replied with a superior look, as if just _itching_ to see Tony fail and be knocked down a few pegs.

The billionaire stood, taking Clint up on his taunting offer. "Right, so, if I lift it, I then rule Asgard?"

Thor nodded, "Yes, of course."

Tony grasped the hammer's handle, "I will be re-instituting Prima Nocta." He pulled on the hammer, to no avail, before he let go and ran out, calling, "Be right back."

He appeared again in a minute, his Iron Man gauntlet on his arm and pulled, still failing. Rhodey came to help, his War Machine gauntlet on as well.

Rhodey groaned, "Are you even pulling?"

"Are you on my team?" Tony scoffed back.

"Just represent. Pull!"

"All right let's go!"

The entire banter made Tess laugh and she leant back on the coach so she didn't fall off after laughing so hard that her sides ached and she was near tears. Eventually it was Steve's turn.

"Let's go, Steve, no pressure," Tess said to her brother and the others joined in.

"C'mon, Cap."

The hammer squeaked when Steve pulled and the smile on Thor's face faltered slightly. When Steve stopped pulling, Thor's smile and laugh were slightly more forced. Tess smirked, suspecting that Steve could lift that hammer, but being a man with high morals, he just didn't want to diminish Thor's happiness.

The dark-haired girl winked at Steve when he sat down and Steve grinned in response.

"And? Widow?"

"Oh, no, no, that's not a question I need answered," Natasha answered and Thor turned to Tess, teasing, " _Tesseract_?"

Tess shook her head, waving her hand as well. She didn't need that question answered either – she already knew the answer. Apparently, however unworthy Tess had been seventy years ago, Tess had redeemed herself in some way.

And now, she could lift Thor's hammer.

Tony seemed to think that he had the solution, "The handles imprinted, right? Like a security code...'Whosoever is carrying Thor's fingerprints' is, I think, the literal translation?"

"Not everything involves _science_ , Tony," Tess rolled her eyes. She, although a 'science experiment,' was fueled by something far more powerful than a serum and Tony had always hated that he couldn't understand it. "And that's just something your big brain can't handle."

"Yes, that's uh, that's a very, very interesting theory." Thor's voice held sarcasm and he reached out for his hammer, picking it up easily, "I have a simpler one. You are all not worthy."

Everyone immediately started to disagree, Tess not included and then they all stopped as a new voice joined the conversation.

" _How could you be worthy? You're all killers_."

The Avengers stood, immediately on guard. Steve stiffened, gravitating towards his sister and Tess lit her hands up with her blue energy.

"Stark," Steve said and Tony tapped a control.

"JARVIS." Tony called but the robot continued speaking, " _I'm sorry, I was asleep. Or...I was a-dream_?"

"Reboot, Legionnaire, we got a buggy suit," Tony muttered, but everyone ignored him as the robot kept talking.

" _There was this...terrible noise...and I was tangled in...In...Strings. Had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy_."

Tess narrowed her eyes, "You killed someone?"

The suit turned to face Tess, " _Wouldn't've been my first call. But, down in the real world, we're faced with ugly choices_."

"Who sent you?" Steve asked and Tess moved closer to him.

The suit replayed a recording, Tony's voice ringing out around the group. " _I see a suit of armor around the world_."

"Ultron!" Bruce breathed, realization hitting him. He looked towards Tony, shock written on his face.

Ultron shook slightly, " _In the flesh. Or, no, not yet. Not this..._ chrysalis _. But I'm ready. I'm on a mission_."

"What mission?" Tess asked, her voice quiet, barely above a whisper. She knew the different people described 'missions,' seeing it first-hand with her father. Missions…that was just a crappy way of saying _genocide._

" _Peace in our time_."

All Hell broke loose as Ultron called out the Iron Legion.

Tess swiped her hands out through four of the suits. Her eyes glowed a brighter blue as she raised her hands and tore a suit in half using her energy manipulation. Tess pushed all outside noises out, concentrating solely on the fight and jumped up into a portal and fell through another one on the other side of the room, landing on a suit and tearing it down the middle.

The Rogers woman fired a sharp blast at the robot near Dr Cho, who was huddled in the corner, not failing to note how the robot _assessed_ the doctor. She disintegrated any suit that crossed her path until there were none left near her. The rest of the Avengers panted slightly from the fight and Ultron gave an almost human sigh.

" _That was dramatic! I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to...evolve? With these? These puppets?_ " Ultron tilted the head of the suit in his hand and crushed it in his fist. With a crack, the suit fell to the ground; the head no longer attached. " _There's only one path to peace._ _The Avengers'_ extinction."

Tess, who was standing next to Thor, flashed rage-filled eyes at Ultron and grabbed Thor's hammer from his hand – a surprisingly loose grip – and threw it, reducing Ultron to a pile of spare parts against the wall.

But Ultron still managed to sing an eerie song before the light dimmed from his robotic eyes completely. " _I had strings, but now I'm free...There are no strings on me, no strings on me...There are no strings on me._ "

Tess gulped and turned, seeing the amazed looks her team were giving her and shrugged, "No need to answer if I can lift the hammer, right? Now, Tony, about that murder bot…"

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **New chapter! Not many changes here but tell me what you think please.**

 **~ Raven**


	4. THREE

**_BLIND RAGE AND REVENGE..._**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** ** _Angel1D98_** **,** ** _NicoleR85_** **AND** _ **Gwendolyn Yuki.**_ **I'M GLAD YOU LIKED THE LAST CHAPTER, THE LAST LINE WAS MY FAVORITE TOO!**

* * *

Bruce looked over the ruined lab, his brow furrowed. "All our work is gone. Ultron cleared out, used the internet as an escape hatch."

Tess didn't miss Steve's snarled, 'Ultron,' and reached out to rest a placating hand on her brother's shoulder.

"He's been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Natasha added.

"That feels oddly…violating…" Tess tilted her head, and shook it after a moment. "But…low level, for a robot who can access _all_ of the internet."

"What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?" Rhodey pondered, seeming to agree with Tess' comments.

"Nuclear codes," Maria continued, have caught his train of thought. She continued to pick glass fragments out of her feet and Tess flicked her fingers, some of the shards dislodging themselves easily and painlessly. The Hill woman shot Tess a grateful look before placing the tweezers away.

"Nuclear codes," Rhodey repeated in agreement. "Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."

"Nukes?" Natasha asked incredulously. "He said he wanted us dead."

"He didn't say dead," Tess disagreed, her tone bored and her eyes unfocused. She was picking at her nails and sitting on a ruined bench. "Correction: He said _extinct_."

The archer wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders, knowing that the psychopathic robot affected her more than she let on, "He also said he killed somebody."

Maria frowned, "But there wasn't anyone else in the building."

Tony interrupted, tapping a remote on his hand, "Yes, there was." Tony brought up the now destroyed 3D image of JARVIS's consciousness.

"This is insane." Bruce commented as Tess gasped, putting a hand to her mouth.

"JARVIS was the first line of defence." Steve glanced with worry over to his sister, who looked close to tears. It wasn't for the sole reason that the (somehow lovable) AI was dead but because they had lost one of their members – a part of their family. "He would've shut Ultron down; it makes sense."

"No," Tess was unconvinced and slid off the bench, walking towards JARVIS. "Ultron could've assimilated JARVIS. This isn't strategy, this is...rage. I – I know blind rage, and this is it."

Suddenly, Thor walked into the room, holding Mjölnir and wearing his full armor. The god of thunder stalked towards Tony, his boots loud and his large hand curled around Tony's throat and holding him up.

"Put my godson down!" Tess' voice – and anger-filled eyes – halted the god of thunder. He was well aware of how protective Tess was when it came down to family. He was extremely grateful that she classed him in that category but he knew that her love for him would not amount to the love she felt for her brother or godson.

"Come on. Use your words, buddy." Tony choked out, and Tess felt ready to smack him in the head. He was being arrogant, as per usual, and only making the entire situation worse by angering a god.

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." Thor growled, but this time the other Rogers' sibling intervened.

"Thor! The Legionnaire."

Thor dropped Tony, who gasped for breath. "Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but it's headed north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it. _Again_."

Natasha scoffed, "The genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron."

"I don't understand." A look of confusion was spread on Helen Cho's face. She was still slightly shaken by the fight but was still functioning – Tess admired that. "You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"

Tony started chuckling to himself, and both Bruce and Tess subtly shook their heads at him to get him to stop, but Thor had already noticed. "You think this is funny?"

"No. It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so...is it so...it is. It's so terrible."

"This could've been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand," Thor spat back but Tony was still grinning in amusement.

"Thor's right," Tess added, making Tony look at her. She waved her hands at the mess around them. "What you tried to do was like HYDRA; now there are another _two_ Enhanced like me running around. You kept pushing and pushing for answers, without realising the consequences. You didn't understand what you were messing with and created something that we didn't need!"

"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this."

Bruce twisted his hands, "Tony, maybe this might not be the time to..."

"Really?!" Tony exclaimed, "That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls."

"Only when I've created a murder bot," Bruce chimed sarcastically, lightly glaring back at Tony.

"We didn't. We weren't even close. Were we close to an interface?"

Steve raised a brow, "Well, you did something right. And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD."

Tony lifted up his hands, "Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?"

Rhodey shook his head, "No, it's never come up."

"Saved New York?"

Rhodey's response was just as sarcastic as the first, "Never heard that."

Tony didn't let his friend's answers dampen his attitude. "Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but, that up there? That's...that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Together." Everyone glanced up at Captain America, whose arm was around Tess and was holding her close to him.

"We'll lose." Tony responded.

"Then we'll do that together, too." Steve looked steadily at Tony who looked back for a moment, and then turned away. "Thor's right. Ultron's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller."

Tess had never been prouder of Steven Grant Rogers than in that exact moment.

 **XXXXX**

"I don't see the big picture, I have a little picture. I take it out and look at it every day." Tess heard Pietro Maximoff say. She was hovering over the twins and Ultron in what appeared to be an abandoned church.

It was a mere astral projection but Tess could see and hear everything going on, yet she had only caught some of the conversation.

"You lost your parents in the bombings. I've seen the records." Ultron drawled.

The silver-haired boy shook his head, "Their records are not the picture."

"Pietro." Wanda interjected but Ultron cut her off, intrigued, "No, please."

Pietro continued speaking, "We were ten years old, having dinner, the four of us. When the first shell hits, two floors below, it makes a hole in the floor. It's big. Our parents go in, and the whole building starts coming apart. I grab her, roll under the bed and the second shell hits. But, it doesn't go off. It just...sits there in the rubble, three feet from our faces. And on the side of the shell is painted one word..."

"Stark," Wanda supplied, a scowl on her face.

"We were trapped two days."

"Every effort to save us, every shift in the bricks, I think, 'this will set it off.'" Wanda had hatred swimming in her eyes, and Tess' eyes widened in horror. _What had Tony done?_ "We wait for two days for Tony Stark to kill us."

Pietro tightened his hold on his sister's hand, "They know what they are."

Ultron had an almost human expression on his metallic face, "I wondered why only you two survived Strucker's experiments. Now I don't. We will make it right. You and I can hurt them." He moved closer to Wanda, and acted as if to touch her face before changing his mind and moving away, "But you will tear them apart, from the inside."

Much to the shock of Tess, he turned to her, "And what of you, Tesseract? Are you willing to join us?"

Tess projected an image of her body in the church, her legs crossed as she sat on a nearby block. Wanda and Pietro stiffened in surprise, ready to fight, but Tess kept her eyes fixed on the robot. "You can sense Chaos Magic. The scepter's doing, I presume."

Her words were more statements, not questions, and she needed no answer. Tess turned, looking directly at the Maximoff twins, "Tony wishes only to save the world, but most of the time…he does more harm than good. But I am truly sorry for what you have experienced." She shook her head with a scoff, "Tony was commissioned to make the missiles, he had no idea where they were going and still, he did it."

They could both tell Tess was genuine and the girl with the electric-blue eyes addressed Ultron again. "I was once controlled by a monster, I will not be controlled by one again." Ultron seemed almost disappointed. Tess caught the twin's eyes again, "I would advise you to discover his _true_ intentions sooner, rather than later."

Tess disappeared with a flick of her hand, leaving the Maximoff's to gape after her, wondering what she meant. _'I was once controlled by a monster, I will not be controlled by one again.'_

 **XXXXX**

Tess snapped back into her body with a gasp, alerting Tony, who was working on the desk near her. Bruce had left some time ago while Tess was 'projecting' and Tony looked more lined and tired than ever.

"Sense anything in the Force, Tessie?" Tony asked, barely glancing up from his work.

Tess grinned slightly at the _Star Wars_ reference, but let out a shaky breath, running her hand over her face. "Something like that."

The Avengers _needed_ to take Ultron down, and soon, before innocent people were hurt. And the twins helped him do it.

 **XXXXX**

 _"_ _Do you have dreams?"_

 _"_ _Of course, I do," Bucky nodded. He leant back into the couch he and Tess were sitting on. "I want to find a girl, get a nice house. Maybe some kids."_

 _Tess smiled kindly, "You with kids?" She bit her lip, "Somehow, I don't see it. I'm sure you could get any girl you want, a nice house too. Probably a dog, rather than children. Steve is the family man."_

 _"_ _Yeah," the dark-haired man nodded, "You're probably right. You're accent is coming along nicely, doll."_

 _Tess wrinkled her nose, "Sometimes I have to think about it and other times, it's just like the German part of me disappears. It's very odd."_

 _"_ _You don't need to change, doll. Not your hair or your clothes or your voice. You're accepted here, no matter what."_

 _"_ _Thank you, James," Tess murmured quietly, eyes glowing with warmth. "You have no idea how much that means to me."_

 _"Don't get sappy on me, doll."_

 _"Wouldn't dream of it."_

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **The flashback was a kind of last minute thing but I liked how it turned out. I wanted to strengthen the bond between Bucky and Tess, even though they hadn't been friends for very long.**

 **Please review!**

 **~ Raven**


	5. FOUR

_**PAST AND PRESENT...**_

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** ** _LuckyGo_** **,** ** _NicoleR85_** **AND** _ **Gwendolyn Yuki.**_ **I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS CHAPTER!**

* * *

 ** _Gwendolyn Yuki:_** _Yeah, Tess and Bucky have the same close-friend-relationship but it was never explored in the last version of this story. Now, I'm adding flashback scenes in to show the bond they had._

* * *

Maria walked beside the Rogers siblings, debriefing the pair on the trail Ultron was leaving, "He's all over the globe. Robotics labs, weapons facilities, jet propulsion labs, reports of a metal man, or men, coming in and emptying the place."

"Fatalities?" Steve asked in a low voice and Maria shook her head.

"Only when engaged. Mostly guys left in a fugue state going on about old memories, worst fears, and something too fast to see."

Tess set her jaw, her vibrant eyes narrowed, "Maximoffs. Well, that makes sense he'd go to them, they have someone in common. Is Strucker still active?"

"Not anymore." Maria handed Steve a tablet showing photo of Strucker's dead body. The word 'PEACE' was written in blood on the wall next to him. Steve passed the tablet over to his sister, who glanced at the image for a moment and mock-winced with a mumbled, " _Ouch_."

Steve called Clint over, who was speaking on his phone, "Barton, we might have something."

"Who was that?" Steve asked Clint as he muttered 'gotta go' into the phone.

Clint wandered over, shoving his phone back into his pocket, "Girlfriend."

Steve missed the wink that Clint shot to the Rogers' girl as she swaggered past and made kissy-faces like a teenager.

 **XXXXX**

After Steve had gathered the rest of the team, Tess showed them the photo of Strucker's body. A half-annoyed, half-victorious look was on her face, which the others all understood. Tess, although annoyed that a life had been lost, was glad that it was the life of someone like Strucker—who, terrifyingly enough, had reminded Tess of a low-level version of her father.

"What's this?" Tony bit out, eyes fixed on the image.

"A message. Ultron killed Strucker." Tony's godmother commented bitingly, "Thanks for that by the way."

Tony didn't understand why his only remaining family was so angry at him—she was _angry_ because Tony had become quite similar to the mad scientists of HYDRA—but the billionaire shrugged it off. "And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us."

"This is a smokescreen." Natasha stated as she analysed the picture. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss," Steve added contemplatively.

"Yeah, I bet he…" Natasha trailed off and looked at the computer screen. "Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased."

Tony smirked, "Not everything."

"No," Tess stated with narrowed eyes. "Don't even think about it. No."

 **XXXXX**

The team went through the physical files they had on Strucker. Tess scoffed at the amount of paper piled on the table, specifically the document she was reading. "Known associates. Well, Strucker had a lot of friends." The young woman leveled a glare at the back of Tony's head, "I said 'no,' but here we are, poring over _all_ the files we have."

Bruce smiled sheepishly at Tess' last comment, and nodded, "Well, these people are all horrible."

"Wait. I know that guy." Tony stated and Bruce passed him the photo he was looking at, "From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms."

Steve gave him an accusing look and Tess nudged Tony, who continued. "There are conventions, alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything."

The bright-blue-eyed hero stared at the photo. She knew him, and he was _extremely_ bad news. Ulysses Klaue was tightly placed in the criminal underground; Tess was worried for Tony, more than he knew.

"'Conventions,' yeah right," the young woman muttered before turning back to the file and reading the information.

"He was talking about finding something new, a game changer, it was all very 'Ahab.'"

Thor pointed to a scar on Klaue's neck, everyone leaning in closer to look, "This."

"Uh, it's a tattoo. I don't think he had it..." Tony supplied but Thor shook his head.

"No, those are tattoos," Thor waved vaguely at the black ink marring Klaue's neck, before he gestured to skin that looked more risen and corded, "This is a brand."

Bruce reached for his tablet, to identify the brand on Klaue's neck. "Oh, yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning thief, in a much less friendly way."

Steve furrowed his brow, "What dialect?"

"Wakanada...? Wa…Wa…" Bruce attempted but Tess hurried over to him and sharply cut him off.

"It can't be…" She shared a look with Tony and Steve, "It's from Wakanda."

Tony looked anxious, "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods..."

Steve caught on just as quickly as Tony and his sister, "I thought your father said he got the last of it?"

"I don't follow." Bruce looked between the Rogers' siblings and Tony, "What comes out of Wakanda?"

Tony, Steve and Tess looked over, staring at Steve's shield, worry written on their faces.

"The strongest metal on earth."

Tess tightened her hands into fists, blue energy starting to float around them, "Where is this guy now?"

 **XXXXX**

" _Don't compare me with Stark! Stark is…he's a sickness_!" Ultron snarled angrily at the criminal, as he kicked a now-one-armed Klaue down the stairs.

Tony flew down in his Iron Man suit, landing with a clink on the metal catwalk, "Ahh, Junior." Thor and Steve walked in behind Tony, and Tess stepped through an electric blue portal and onto the catwalk between Steve and Thor. "You're gonna break your old man's heart."

Ultron stepped forward, " _If I have to_."

Thor tried to remain civil, "We don't have to break anything."

" _Clearly you've never made an omelet_."

Tony let out a humorless chuckle at Ultron's words, "He beat me by one second."

"Ah, this is funny, Mr Stark. It's what, comfortable?" Pietro questioned, "Like old times?"

"This was never my life." Tony muttered, somber. His eyes had followed Pietro's to a small stock of missiles below them. Tess knew for a fact, that Anthony Stark was not a good man, but he tried exceptionally hard to try to be.

Tess looked at the twins, subconsciously grabbing her brother's hand, "You two can still walk away from this."

"Oh, we will." Wanda sneered at the girl, assuming that Tess had not even the slightest idea about what the Maximoff twins had gone through at the hands of Tony and HYDRA.

"We know you've suffered." Steve attempted but Ultron cut him off.

" _Uuughh! Captain America. God's righteous man, pretending you could live without a war. And Tesseract. HYDRA's little angel, Amalia Schmidt, pretending that she's a hero when she's the worst of the worst_..." Tess began to shake with anger, but she still lit her hand up with Chaos Magic. " _I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but_..."

Tesseract's eyes were even brighter than usual, burning with an almost destructive light. Tess' reaction made the twins tilt their heads in confusion. "I suggest that you don't speak of things you don't know of. Amalia is dead."

Thor lifted his hammer slightly, and gently pushed the young girl behind him, despite her growl of annoyance, "If you believe in peace, then let us keep it."

" _I think you're confusing peace with quiet_ ," Ultron responded with a tilt of his head.

"Yuh-huh." Tony pressed, "What's the Vibranium for?"

" _I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan_!" Without warning, Ultron fired a blast at Tony, launching the fight. The Iron Legions attacked, flying at Tony, Steve, Thor and Tess. Tony leapt forward, attacking Ultron.

Tess jumped through a portal, landing on a catwalk below and spun, sliding a glowing hand into a suit's chest. Klaue's men began firing at them, not caring who they shot. Tess fired blast after blast at Klaue's men. She jumped, wrapping her legs around a man's neck and snapped it. She gracefully tumbled off the man's body as it fell and she kicked out a leg, stabbing her heel through the chest of one of the Iron Legion. Punching a man in the face, and warping another's mind, Tess continued fighting. Teaming up with Natasha, Tess created a portal that sent the assassin to the other side of the room. Natasha immediately shot two of Klaue's men, shooting Tess a smile.

"Clint!" Tess called and the archer shot an arrow at the girl, which passed through one of her portals just in time, and buried itself in the eye of a robot flying at Steve.

Tess saw Pietro grab onto Thor's hammer as it sailed through the air. Pietro flew with it and landing in a pile of boxes.

"Stay down, kid!" Steve advised and Tess appeared through a portal in front of them, engulfing Pietro in magic ropes.

Wanda stood in the shadows, watching the fight. " _It's time for some mind games_ ," One of Ultron's copies muttered to Wanda and the brunette slunk into the shadows.

" _Thor! Status?_ " Steve called to Thor and Tess lifted a hand, scanning for Wanda with her magic.

" _The girl tried to warp my mind. Take special care, I doubt a human could keep her at bay. Fortunately, I am mighty_."

Tess snarled, "Liar," as she felt Thor's mind change ever-so-slightly. "Oh no…" Tess groaned as Natasha and Steve also were sent into visions.

"Clint," Tess called through the comms., "Be careful."

Tess stalked over to Pietro and tightened her hold on him. The hero looked down at the silver-haired boy in front of her. "Why are you doing this?"

"Revenge," Pietro muttered, "I'm sorry, but I can't let you stand in the way of that."

Tess smiled sadly, "And I can't let you get away with it. Revenge…revenge doesn't make you feel better." The Tesseract tilted her head slightly and her eyes flashed, unbeknownst to the witch behind her. "And I can't let you force me to see it again. Not alone, anyway."

Wanda had already muddled the minds of the others when she moved towards Tesseract. The other Chaos Magic user was her main target, along with the Hulk. Wanda let her mind manipulation powers slide over Tess' mind, but not before Tess connected her own magic to the girl. Electric-blue eyes met red, and the two witches spiraled into visions of Tess' past.

The red witch heard the blue one whisper, "I'm so sorry, Wanda," before Wanda screamed in horror and pain, feeling what Tess had felt before and was now being forced to endure again.

 **XXXXX**

 _The nightmare made Tess' voice escape from her sleeping form in a scream. Sweat dripped down her forehead and her fingernails had clawed jagged holes into the fabric of her sheets. Tess desperately took in breaths, reminded herself that she_ could _breathe and that frozen water no longer blocked her airways._

 _Adjusting to the twentieth century was going to take time, she had been warned. Tess knew that, she wasn't stupid. Nothing made sense in this time and the technology was far more developed than Tess had ever seen it._

 _But the countless medical professionals who openly gawked at her or scurried away in fear had not warned her of the nightmares that would haunt her dreams._

 _The small apartment SHIELD had arranged for her was empty—loneliness dragged at the entire dwelling and Tess hated coming home to the cold apartment, which only succeeded in reminding her of the ice. The ice was what tormented her and anything cold, like the snow that fell in the winter she was currently experiencing, sent her into dizzying panic attacks._

 _Loneliness had become a major theme in Tess Rogers' life. Majority of the people who had known her were dead or too old to help her search for Steve. But she never gave up hope, even when the terror seeped into ever sleeping thought._

 _She had feared her father, yes, but she had never known fear like when she had opened her eyes under the water. Tess would never forget the moment just after she hit the water and just before the blackness seeped into her vision in her half-conscious state, when the ice had clogged her throat and nose and burnt her eyes before it froze her solid._

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **This chapter shows a softer-side to Tess, in terms of humanity and fear, and the next chapter includes Wanda-induced flashbacks. In that chapter, Tess will kind-of turn the tables on Wanda, so look out for that!**

 **Please review!**

 **~ Raven**


	6. FIVE

_**AT SOME POINT...**_

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **SHIT! I JUST REALIZED THAT I HAD MISSED OUT THIS CHAPTER ENTIRELY AND THAT IT'S INSTRUMENTAL TO THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WANDA AND TESS AND HER BACKSTORY! SORRY BUT ENJOY!**

* * *

 _The five-year-old Amalia did not utter a word, watching impassively as her father hovered over her. She had long since realized that there was no point in trying to fight her father –he only over-powered her in the end anyway and the punishment was all the more horrific._

 _The newly-created Red Skull stared at his daughter, "Amalia. You are my little angel; HYRDA's little angel."_

"Don't fight. Don't fight. I thought you _wanted_ our pain, Wanda? I thought you wanted to _tear us apart_ …"

 _Without another word, the Nazi stabbed the glowing blue syringe into his child. She let out an ear-shattering scream. Her fragile body fell to the ground, convulsing and her fingers glowed and twitched sporadically. She had been warned of the pain but nothing like this—_ nothing _that made her feel like her skin was burning and her bones were snapping and reshaping._

 _And her screams continued, until finally, her voice faltered as she welcomed the darkness with open arms._

"Is this what you want to see?" Tess' voice slithered out of the shadows to Wanda's ears. The Sokovian girl's eyes were wide with horror at the scene. "Our pain? Our terror? Our suffering?"

"Enough—!" Wanda spiraled into another memory belonging to Tess Rogers.

 **XXXXX**

 _Her face was impassive as the whip cracked down, again and again._

 _She refused to break; to bend to the will of a tyrant. Even if the tyrant was her own father. Amalia had not killed the man when her father had asked. Now, she was being taught that disobedience would be her end._

 _Amalia never faltered._

 _The whip slashed her back open but she remained silent, even as the blood dripped and pooled near her knees. She had always been smart—had always been strong enough to survive HYDRA—but with the power of the Tesseract flowing through her, Amalia had seen what it was like outside of the walls she was raised in. She had discovered that she could be_ more _and that outside of the clawed grip of HYDRA, there was life and goodness that she could thrive in._

 _"_ _You will obey me!" The whip cracked down again, leaving more long gashes and more blood._

 _The Red Skull tried to break his daughter before he experimented on her with the Tesseract, but Amalia didn't break – she didn't so much as crack. And the Red Skull knew he would just have to begin the procedures._

"Do you think I do not understand?" Tess' voice was cruel and cold, taking on the quality that it once was like when she was under HYDRA's thumb. "I see the world so much better than you do—I have had _seventy_ _years_ extra to do so. But your revenge mission…it blinds you from the _real_ enemy."

 **XXXXX**

 _Amalia's body was that of a twenty-something-year-old. Her eyes were the same colour as the Tesseract. The tips of her hair were the same shade. Everything that she was; all that she had become…it was all because of HYDRA._

 _Except for her mind. She was too volatile to be controlled by the very organization that she had been raised in._

 _"_ _I'm sorry, Bucky." Amalia murmured as she entered the torture chamber where James Buchanan Barnes was. "Doctor Zola is coming again today. It will be worse than yesterday."_

 _"_ _It'll be okay, Tess."_

 _James had taken to calling Amalia 'Tess,' short for Tesseract, as he didn't know her real name after she had merely introduced herself by the codename HYDRA had given her. Amalia welcomed it. Over the time Bucky had been there, Amalia was the only one who cared for him – who showed any kind of compassion—and the two had formed an unlikely bond in the Nazi corporation's basement._

 _Armin Zola walked into the room, bowed stiffly to Amalia and gestured her out. As the daughter of the Red Skull, Zola couldn't very well order her out, but he could express his wonder at what the woman was and his distaste of her age and gender. "You are dismissed," Amalia told the two guards outside the door. She would guard the door herself today._

 _Bucky's first scream made Amalia's toes curl. The second made her sob. The third made her pray to every deity she knew, to spare Bucky pain and to just strike him down then._

Wanda stepped closer to the woman. The past Tess— _Amalia_ , Wanda corrected herself—didn't keel over and sob; _no_ , she stayed upright, spine locked and eyes dead-set ahead, and she even had it within herself to salute Zola as he walked into the room.

"Why didn't you leave?"

 _Bucky screamed – a long, suffering note – followed by sobs of terror. Another scream, another sob and then Zola was laughing like the mad scientist he was_.

Wanda turned to look at Tess as she asked but she felt her presence beside her as she answered. "Because I owed him that. I owed him my own sanity as I so easily let his be taken away. I _owed_ him because he saved my life, even though he didn't realise it."

 **XXXXX**

 _"_ _No!" Tess screamed, "Bucky, hold on!"_

 _Steve was desperately trying to reach for his friend, who hung off the side of the train with one arm. Tess was swirling her hands in complicated gestures, trying to conjure enough of her blue magic. She winced, the bloody wound in her side aching, but she continued to try to create a platform under Bucky._

 _Tess had replayed this moment multiply times in her nightmares._ _When Steve had rescued Bucky, he had taken the new 'sister' of his best friend with him, and the three had become incredibly close, like siblings. So when one was hurting, the other two were too. Steve's cry of 'Bucky!' as James Buchanan Barnes lost his hold on the train and fell the hundreds of meters to the icy ground below._

Wanda, despite herself, even lunged forward to reach for Bucky. She knew she couldn't reach him but the way Tess looked at him and at Steve was the same way that Wanda looked at Pietro—the loving look of a sibling who could not leave without the other.

That pained her, more than she wanted to admit.

Tess tutted, forcing the Maximoff girl to watch, "You brought me here. Watch our last moments together; we never saw Bucky again."

 _Steve collapsed back into the train and was immediately engulfed in a hug. "I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…" Tess cried as she and Steve sobbed for their friend._

"You don't _deserve_ to target us. Because _you_ are not the only ones who have been wronged in the world. We help, you destroy, and sometimes, we destroy too." Wanda winced at Tess' last sentence, " _You're not that special, Wanda Maximoff._ "

 **XXXXX**

 _"_ _I can make one last portal."_

 _Steve and Tess were in the cockpit of the ship, ready to send the ship into the icy Arctic waters. The Red Skull had apparently disintegrated when he had grabbed the Tesseract but neither of the two heroes had it within in them to check. Both Tess and Steve were badly injured, Tess more so, and she only had enough strength to open a portal for one._

 _"_ _I can send you back. To Peggy."_

 _"_ _And what about you?" Steve asked the younger girl._

 _"_ _I'll survive."_

 _Steve shook his head, "No. We'll go down together. Steve and Tess Rogers."_

 _Tess smiled sadly, "I'm honored to be a Rogers."_

 _With her last burst of energy, Tess extended her hands. Blue energy wrapped around the ship as it plummeted and Tess screamed. Her muscles and mind strained as she attempted to keep the shield around the ship. Her nose bled, the red liquid rolling down to her lip and her feet began to slide backwards. The energy pushed her back, out the open whole in the ship and she fell into the ocean._

 _"_ _Tess!" Her name was the last thing Tess heard as her body fell through the air and hit the icy water…and it all went black._

 **XXXXX**

"This is where my _real_ nightmares come into play," the Rogers woman admitted to Wanda. The younger brunette let out a scream at the scene playing out in front of her, seeing a bloody hand right in front of her, clutching a red muscle that was still pumping in Vision-Tess' grasp. Tess continued as if Wanda wasn't terrified, "My biggest nightmare is my past but my biggest fear is _becoming_ my past."

 _Tess was shoving her hand through Thor's chest, cackling as her powers disintegrated his heart. The blonde god fell to his knees and then to the ground, eyes wide open and a gaping hole in his chest._

 _Natasha, Clint, a brunette woman, two children and an infant already lay behind Tess. She was focused entirely on her mission and stepped over Thor's body. Seconds later, Bruce Banner's fell down too and somehow, the Hulk's body collapsed beside his counterpart's._

 _Sam, Rhodey and Maria were strung up by the neck over the balcony of Avengers Tower, their eyes open and hands clawed as they tried to fight against the blue tethers around their necks._

 _"_ _Please," a voice whimpered. "Please…"_ Wanda spun around. A little boy, innocent and dark-eyed, stared up at her. _"Don't let her hurt me_."

The chaos-magic manipulator crouched down beside the boy, "I won't. I'll protect you." Wanda reached out for him but he quickly stepped back, fearful of the red that had seeped from her hands without her permission.

 _"_ _Liar!" The boy suddenly yelled and the scene changed. Tess was standing in front of the boy, hands raised in surrender. "You said you would protect me! That you would save my parents! That you wouldn't let me die!"_

 _"_ _I will," Tess repeated, "I will. Anthony…"_

Wanda's mouth dropped open. Anthony— _Tony_. Tony Stark as a child was begging for Tess to protect him. He was so innocent, so gentle.

 _"_ _You promised!"_

 _"_ _You're right…" Tony looked smug but only for a second because Tess' face became a cold mask, "I lied."_

 _His heart was torn from his chest and he became the older, billionaire Tony Stark that Wanda recognised. The man fell to the ground and then Steven Rogers was next—his heart literally being burnt from his chest as Tess laughed and taunted him, an image of Bucky Barnes cheering her on from behind her_.

"See my fear?" Tess asked, rather unnecessarily. "I can see it now. Just look over there and you'll see it too."

Wanda walked to where Tess was pointing and she realized what the Rogers woman meant. The Maximoff girl had stopped in front of a mirror and her own wild-haired, red-eyed reflection stared back at her. Flashes of happier moments with Pietro and her parents spun in her vision.

It changed; Wanda saw herself killing her parents, unfazed by the way they screamed for mercy, for help and clutched a dead Pietro to their chests. _Wanda_ was the _monster_ ; she was cold and heartless and—

 **XXXXX**

—Wanda fell out of the visions, her mind already strained by the hold on the other minds of the Avengers but now her heart strained even more. Pietro had been holding his twin tightly, rocking her as she screamed along with Tess.

Now, as Wanda was awake, Pietro moved to lower Tess' arms, to make sure she didn't hurt herself as she thrashed around.

Raising a hand streaming with red energy, Wanda let the hold on Tess' mind loosen. She was shaking, desperately trying to get rid of the visions. "How could someone endure so much…? She…she's _right_ about me!" Wanda cried out lowly, moving to touch Tess' hand, before she was cut off.

Clint had pushed an electric dart to Wanda's forehead. "Tried the whole 'mind-control' thing. Wasn't a fan. I'm sure Tess is even less of one."

The female Enhanced convulsed and Pietro, with a final look at Tess' prone form, ran out of the warehouse, cradling his sister to him.

"What can I do?" Pietro asked worried as they stopped, and Wanda pressed a hand to her forehead.

"Ah, it hurts." Wanda still felt the sting from the electrified arrow, but the dull pain in her mind and chest was still from Tess' past that she had experienced. Her bitterness and bloodlust was returning full-strength now due to her distance from the emotional control Tess had temporarily placed on her. Young Tony danced in her vision for a moment before she saw the Tony Stark that they had been acquainted with.

Confusion and hesitation swirled within her chest but something pushed her to complete the plan—fear of Ultron.

Pietro stood, about to run off, "I'm gonna kill him. I'll be right back."

"No. I'm over it." Wanda stated, using a hand to stop her brother, "I want...I want to finish the plan." The witch looked over to the Quinjet, seeing where Bruce Banner was waiting and despite everything she had seen in Tess' mind, she wasn't backing down. "I want the big one."

 **XXXXX**

With a scream, Tess shot up. Her eyes met Clint's, who was trying to get everyone to the Quinjet. They were still in Klaue's warehouse and it had only been moments since she had been mentally manipulated. Raising a hand and shaking her head to clear the fog over her mind, a portal swallowed Thor and Steve.

Her memories – the horrors in her head – made her feel a tidal wave of emotions that she hadn't felt in a long time. Bitterness, hatred, rage.

Tess had waited for twenty years for her brother back after they crashed. Too long in Steve's opinion, as he constantly reminded the young woman.

She had been found twenty years before her brother had been – fifty years after she had been frozen in the Arctic. She helped raise Anthony Stark after she had found out that Howard had made good on his promise (really, it was a drunken bet) and had named her godmother to his first born.

Peggy grew old and started to forget. Howard became world-renowned but was murdered alongside his wife. Bucky was dead. The Red Skull was dead, something they couldn't prove. SHEILD was created, meant to protect the world.

And Tess was alone. Never aging or able to forget; Tess waited and waited for Steve to be found. And to wake up.

"They're on the jet," Tess said, with a shaky breath, begging herself to focus on _anything_ else than what she and Wanda had seen.

Clint shot her a thankful look. "She got you too, didn't she?"

Tess nodded but didn't elaborate, "Everyone else?"

"Yeah," Clint muttered, lifting Natasha up carefully. "Everyone but me and Tony."

"Bruce?" Tess' eyes were wide in horror. Just as she asked, Tony's voice came over the comms, " _Natasha, I could really use a lullaby_."

"Well, that's not gonna happen. Not for a while. The whole team is down, you got no back-up here," Clint replied and Tess stood up.

"Tony," Tess spoke up into the comms, opening a portal, "I'm okay. I'm coming to you now."

Clint shook his head, "No, Tess. Your past…you need to rest."

"Don't worry. I'm always okay." Tess smiled and stepped through the portal into the middle of the city the Hulk was destroying. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened, "Tony, I think you should call in VERONICA."

The Hulk roared at them as Tony flew overhead, flying as fast as he could to get to Tess and Bruce. " _Good idea_."

"Ya think!?"

 **XXXXX**

" _The news is loving you guys. Nobody else is. There's been no official call for Banner's arrest, but it's in the air_ ," Maria informed the team and Tess scowled.

"Not helping, Maria. Unless you've got something helpful to say, don't say anything at all."

Tess was extremely agitated after being repeated pummeled by her friend. Her mind was frazzled by what Wanda had done to her and her eyes stung, due to the unshed tears caused by the visions.

It wasn't her visions that were the problem but more so the self-hatred and other melancholic emotions that radiated from her friends.

The younger Rogers sat in a seat in the Quinjet, her head placed in her hands and her lips pressed into a thin line. Her electric-blue hair was pulled into a messy bun on the top of her head and her brow was set into a deep frown on her ageless face.

She couldn't even comfort the gentle Doctor Banner, as every time she tried, Bruce got scared that he would hurt her (again) and shied away from her hands. Eventually, Tess had given up and sat a distance away after summoning a blanket for Bruce to wrap around himself.

"Stark Relief Foundation?" Tony asked and Maria tapped on her tablet.

" _Already on the scene. How's the team_?"

"Everyone's…" Tony trailed off and stared at the team, all of which were in vary stages of shock and heartbreak. "We took a hit. We'll shake it off."

Tess desperately wanted to say 'no, we won't' but didn't.

" _Well for now I'd stay in stealth mode, and stay away from here_ ," Maria recommended and Tess frowned, as Tony asked, "So, run and hide?"

Maria nodded, " _Until we can find Ultron, I don't have a lot else to offer_."

"Neither do we." Tony switched off the monitor, ending the call with Maria.

Tony turned around and met Tess' annoyed gaze. "We didn't take a hit, Anthony, we got _broken_. It's going to take a hell of a lot of time to pick up the pieces; time that we, as Avengers, don't have." Getting up, Tess moved to the cockpit. "Hey, you wanna switch out?"

Clint shook his head, focusing on flying the Quinjet. "No, I'm good. If you wanna get some kip, now's a good time, cause we're still a few hours out."

"A few hours from where?" Tony asked as he walked over.

Clint smiled, "A safe-house." Tony walked away again, thinking it best to leave the currently-erratic woman and pilot alone, and Clint turned to the woman next to him. "Are you okay?"

"I had to face my past at some point." Tess dragged a hand over her face, before twining her fingers together. "Why not when we're trying to stop a crazy, homicidal robot man and his speedster and witch? Besides, I gave Little Miss Witch a little taste of her own goddamn medicine."

Clint smiled wryly and turned back to fly the jet as Tess materialized a seat next to him. Tony made a joke about every situation, and so could his godmother. Tess attempted to lighten the mood of the situation, and it was appreciated. Tony just didn't do it the same way because arrogance colored every word that flew out of his mouth.

"I can't wait to see them," Tess mused quietly, "but I don't think I'm the best person to be around right now."

The Barton man simply stayed quiet, letting Tess confide her worries in him and fall into a light, and somewhat fretful, slumber.

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **I JUST FOUND OUT I MISSED THIS CHAPTER SO I WILL DELETE THE ONES I UPDATED AFTER IT AND THEN CONTINUE ON FROM THERE. SORRY!**

 **~ Raven**


	7. SIX

_**TIME DISCOVERS TRUTH...**_

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** ** _LuckyGo_** **,** ** _NicoleR85,_** ** _Angel1D98_** **AND** _ **Gwendolyn Yuki.**_ **I WANTED TO THANK YOU AGAIN FOR REVIEWING, EVEN AFTER THE WHOLE 'MISSED CHAPTER' FIASCO**

* * *

The Quinjet landed outside the large farmhouse and the team walked towards the house. Natasha and Tess had been to the farmhouse before, as Tess was seen as a sort of sister to Clint. She was always like that – the little sister that needed protecting when, really, she was older than them all and could kick ass a lot better too.

"What is this place?" Thor asked, his voice gruffer than usual. He had seen something horrifying, like them all, but he was putting walls up to protect himself. Tess was trying to desperately tear down all of the walls, realising that part of Ultron's plan was to make each Avenger segregate _themselves_ from their own teammates.

Tony frowned, questioning, "A safe-house?"

"Let's hope," Clint muttered as the team walked into the house, all worn and tired. Natasha was still being helped along by her best friend. "Honey, I'm home." Laura, Clint's heavily pregnant wife walked ( _waddled_ , Tess found more accurate and beamed at the woman) out from the kitchen and Clint smiled lovingly at her, "Hi. Company. Sorry I didn't call ahead."

"Hey, Laura greeted and kissed Clint.

"This is an agent of some kind," Tony mumbled to Thor and Tess. Tess merely shot him a bored look, one of complete and utter impatience.

"Gentleman, this is Laura." Clint introduced to the male Avengers who didn't know Laura. Laura smiled beautifully at the group.

"I know all your names." Laura opened her arms and smiled, Tess immediately stepping into the embrace. "How are you, Tessie?"

Tess pulled back and smiled back at Clint's wife. "Better now. Barton hugs are the best."

"Ooh, incoming," Clint commented as he heard the patter of small feet and his son and daughter came into view. Lila and Cooper had grown since Tess had last seen them.

"Dad!" Lila cried and Clint picked her up.

"I see her!" Clint kissed the top of Cooper's head, "Hey, buddy! How you guys doing? Ooh..."

The others watched in surprise, and Tony commented, "These are...smaller agents."

"Look at your face! Oh, my goodness!" Clint continued to coo and Lila asked, excited, "Did you bring Auntie Nat?"

Cooper jumped up too, hoping to see his favourite aunt, "And Auntie Tess?"

Natasha stepped into view, "Why don't you hug her and find out?"

Lila ran to Natasha, who picked her up. Tess smiled, ready to join in the fun and she used a portal to appear behind Cooper, swinging him up into her arms. "Hey, kiddo! How are you?"

Cooper laughed loudly and swung around, the young boy basically attached to the young hero. Cooper loved Tess the best because she treated him like he was older than he was, not babying the young boy in the slightest. And Tess made Cooper fly with her powers, which was just the best thing the boy could hope for. The Rogers girl had always felt comfortable around children and, maybe it was because she knew Tony as a child, Tess had immediately connected really well with Cooper Barton.

These were the times when Tess wished that life was simpler and that she could settle down, maybe get married and have a few little people to toddle around a nice country house filled with laughter and paint. A nice place for her friends and brother to come over for a barbeque and not be called in for a mission or accidently read a friend's mind or start shooting things.

But as an Avenger that dream was quite unrealistic.

"Sorry for barging in on you," Steve apologized, ever the gentleman. Even when he was confused about how his sister knew Laura and the rest of Clint's family.

Tony snorted, "Yeah, we would have called ahead, but we were busy having no idea that you existed."

That comment earned him a testy glare from his godmother, which immediately made him raise his hands in surrender.

"Yeah," Clint looked around his house, "Well, Fury helped me set this up when I joined. He kept it off SHIELD's files, I'd like to keep it that way. I figure it's a good place to lay low."

"Honey. Ah, I missed you," Laura greeted Natasha when she walked over, the assassin looking worse for wear.

Natasha touched Laura's swollen belly. "How's little Natasha, huh?

Laura smiled nervously, "She's...Nathaniel."

Natasha bent down towards Laura's pregnant stomach, muttering, "Traitor," while Tess tried to contain her laughter.

Thor suddenly turned from the room, stalking out. Tess and Steve exchanged a look before both Rogers followed after him.

"Thor," Steve called and Thor stopped.

"Where are you going?" Tess asked, her voice calming and the god felt his shoulders loosen. Tess was always so accepting—she gave them all that feeling that you could tell her anything and she would never judge and always forgive.

"I saw something in that dream. I need answers, I won't find them here." Thor swung Mjölnir and flew away from the farmhouse. Steve turned and walked back to the farmhouse. Peggy's voice slid into his mind for a moment.

Tess, from her distance away, felt a change in Steve's mind. "Are Wanda's visions still affecting you?"

"No." The female Rogers gave her brother a look, but Tess let the lie slide, having already seen what Steve was still experiencing. Peggy was still a sore subject for both of them.

 **XXXXX**

Tess had locked herself in her room.

No one could get her out and the young woman was left to fend off the memories by herself. She was also scared—more so than usual—that her biggest fear would come true. She was now more fearful as she had seen Laura, Lila, Cooper and baby Nathanial in her nightmare. Who was she to say that it wasn't possible that one day she would just _lose it_ and then it would be the end of… _everything_? The blue-eyed girl shot her head up as someone knocked on the door, fingers tangling nervously in the sheets of the bed.

"Tessie?"

The hero didn't answer, she just shook her head and laid back down on the small bed, in the room she was sharing with Steve. She knew Laura had probably heard about the visions from Clint, and she didn't need anyone to 'help her work through them.'

" _You must open the door, Amalia. I am your creator!_ "

Tess' eyes flashed open and she visibly flinched, as she heard the remnants of her father's voice in her head. She didn't want to admit it, but since her run-in with Wanda, she had been weaker than she had been in decades and her memories were beginning to leak into her life.

"Come—" When her voice broke, Tess cleared her throat and straightened her spine, pushing her hair away from her slightly tear-stained cheeks. "Come in." Laura opened the door, and Tess sighed at the kind look on her face. The blue-eyed girl patted the spot on the bed beside her, "I'm not glass, you know. I won't shatter if you accidently bump me."

"I know," Laura was so proud of Tess, feeling like a mother towards her, even though Tess was so much older. "Tessie, you're one of the bravest, strongest people I know. And you look after others before you even _think_ about looking after yourself."

"Load of bullshit, that did everyone," Tess scoffed. "Wanda got to everyone and Bruce almost demolished an entire city because of her. And still, I _foolishly_ believe that there can be some sort of redemption for both her and Pietro."

Hawkeye's wife reached out and grabbed Tess' hands, looking her straight in the eyes, "Tess. I remember someone very similar to that Maximoff girl doing almost the exact same thing on a mission in Budapest."

The hero called Tesseract winced with a tense smile, "We don't talk about Budapest."

Laura laughed. When Nat and Clint had returned from Budapest with a new ally, all three had immediately arrived in the Barton residence and confided in Laura, who was so welcoming, they couldn't help but feel safe. That was when Cooper and Lila had started treating Tess like an aunt and Nat and Clint saw Tess as family.

"I just…" Tess shook her head, looking at the woman beside her, "I just can't go out there. Not right now. I'm scared I'll…"

Tess trailed off and the Barton woman kissed her temple, knowing exactly what she meant even without saying it. "Whenever you're ready, sweetheart. We're all here for you."

"Thank you, Laura." Laura heard quietly as she pulled the door closed behind her with a small smile. Tess was so, so strong and didn't give herself enough credit for it.

Tess collapsed back against her pillows. The bright-blue-eyed woman frowned, knowing something was wrong – she felt it in her very bones. But emotional exhaustion won out, and the girl fell asleep, drifting into more nightmares and memories.

 **XXXXX**

"Ultron took you folks out of play to buy himself time. My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of Vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing."

Nick Fury's voice brought Tess out of her sleep and she heard Steve ask, "What about Ultron himself?" before she decided to sit up. Sound traveled surprisingly well in the Barton house but her enhanced senses probably helped her out too.

Tess opened a portal over her lap, so she could see straight through the floor and above the kitchen. Nick Fury was talking to the team, each of the Avengers fussing around Clint's homely kitchen as they listened.

"Ah. He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans though."

Tess frowned, thinking hard. _Extinction of humans…but to what end?_ As Tess was swept away in her own world of strategy, she missed a bit of the conversation and she forced herself to focus properly. Now was not the time for daydreaming.

"He's fixated on the missiles, but the codes are constantly being changed," Nick told the team.

Tony raised a brow, "By whom?"

"Parties unknown." Tess snorted quietly in amusement. If Fury was consistently something, it was vague. That and, as of recently, _dead_.

"Do we have an ally?" Nat asked and Fury shook his head.

"Ultron's got an enemy, that's not the same thing. Still, I'd pay folding money to know who it is."

Tess suddenly closed the portal, eyes wide and she shot out the door, bounding down the stairs. Steve was telling the team, "To become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies," when Tess shot into the room.

"Person bodies," Tony agreed, "The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it."

"When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed."

"They don't need to be protected, they need to evolve." Bruce glanced at Tess, while he spoke, confused at the frustrated look on her face, "Ultron's going to evolve."

Tess stuck her hand in the air—like a student—as Fury asked, "How?"

"Helen!" The blue-eyed girl finally interrupted. Everyone in the room swung around to look at the girl who had locked herself in her room for almost an entire day. Obviously, she had noticed something they hadn't. "Helen Cho. Ultron kept her alive when he first attacked us at the Tower. She's going to use the cradle to make him a new, better, Vibranium body."

 **XXXXX**

 _"_ _This is Vibranium," Howard informed the young German girl, running his finger over Steve's shield. He looked like a proud parent as he admired it with a loving look. "It's the strongest metal on the planet and it's going to be the future."_

 _Tess pulled a face, "You are altogether_ too _optimistic. What if something…better is found? Like a variation of Vibranium which is cheaper but just as strong."_

 _The Stark man stared Tess in the face like he was seeing her for the first time. And then he smiled. "You're too smart for your own good. I like smart."_

 _"_ _I am also too young for you."_

 _Howard tipped his head back and laughed, "Well, if you're not giving me a shot, you're my new little sister who can be smarter than me at times."_

 _"_ _I doubt that very much," Tess assured the Stark man and subtly stroking his ego. "But I can assure you that I am far more intelligent when it comes to illegal activity."_

 _"_ _Like murder, espionage and theft?"_

 _"_ _Like drinking, speeding and assault. But I'm sure that I am better at those other three too."_

 _Howard smirked, "Want to make this interesting? I drink you under the table and you need to tattoo 'Stark' onto a part of your body."_

 _"_ _And if I win," Tess bargained, "you name me as the godmother of your firstborn."_

 _The smirk widened and Howard stuck out his hand for Tess to shake. "You're on, little lady. I'm not gonna say sorry when I make you cry."_

 _Tess shook the genius' hand. "_ Ditto _."_

 **XXXXX**

"I'll take Tess, Natasha and Clint."

"Alright, strictly recon," Tony instructed the captain. "I'll hit the NEXUS, I'll join you as soon as I can."

"If Ultron is really building a body..." Steve trailed off.

Tess hurried into the room, shrugging to adjust her clothes and called, "He is! I'm sure of it. I noticed the way one of his forms eyed her at the party."

Tony nodded, agreeing with his godmother, "He'll be more powerful than any of us. Maybe all of us. An android designed by a robot."

"You know I really miss the days when the weirdest thing science ever created was me."

"Oh, please," Tess nudged Steve with her elbow, smiling, "I was created first and I am _far_ weirder than you."

Steve sent his sister an adoring smile. He was just happy to see Tess smiling again and even cracking jokes. Tess was always good at bouncing back from bad things happening—even though sometimes she was faking it—and Steve could always depend on her.

"I'll drop Banner off at the Tower. Do you mind if I borrow Ms Hill?" Fury added.

"She's all yours, apparently. What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know. Something dramatic, I hope," at Fury's words, Tess smirked and mouthed, 'Helicarrier' at the eye-patch-wearing man who smirked back. The Rogers woman assumed that he would've winked if it didn't look like he was just blinking.

"I'm gonna finish re-flooring that sunroom as soon as I get back," Clint was telling his wife as Tess walked over to them.

Laura nodded, "Yeah, and then you'll find another part of the house to tear apart."

"No. It's the last project. I promise," Clint kissed Laura and Tess smiled at the woman. Laura looked back at her in worry, hugging the girl.

"I promise you, Clint will come home. I swear it on my life," Tess whispered in Laura's ear, before she ran onto the Quinjet.

On Tess's life, yes, that was exactly what Laura was worried about as she watched the Quinjet take off.

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **I added a little Tess/Howard bonding. I love that part and the whole Tess/Barton family bonding. I adore writing the parts where Tess is just a part of the family and she isn't a hero or a former weapon. I sound like an idiot, ignore me please!**

 **Please review!**

 **~ Raven**


	8. SEVEN

_**BONDS GROW STRONGER...**_

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** ** _LuckyGo_** **,** ** _NicoleR85_** ** _Angel1D98_** _ **.**_ **THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING.** **THIS CHAPTER IS QUITE A BIT SHORTER THAN THE LAST ONE BUT I HOPE YOU LIKE IT! ADMITTEDLY, THE FIGHT SCENE IS WEAK, SO THERE'S NO NEED TO LET ME KNOW.**

* * *

From her place on the Quinjet, Tess slammed her head back against the wall of the jet. Steve was beside her in an instant.

"Tess! Tess, are you okay!?"

Tess groaned, her blue-eyes flashing, "Extinction. Wanda has seen Ultron's plan." The younger girl looked up at her brother, a look of pure determination on her face, "The Maximoffs will fight with us. And if they still don't, even after what they just found out…I'll kick their asses."

 **XXXXX**

Steve hopped over the railing onto the roof of the genetic research lab, his shield attached to his back. Tess appeared beside her brother, landing in a crouch from her portal and she brushed some dirt off her shoulder.

The Rogers man rolled his eyes at his sister's antics before he looked out from the building, "Two minutes. Stay close."

Clasping Steve's hand in hers, Tess teleported into the lab and Steve immediately saw Helen Cho, bleeding on the ground, "Dr Cho!"

The captain pressed a rag against the wound, only to be nudged aside by his sister, who took over and began to heal the doctor.

"He's uploading himself into the body," Cho told the pair and Tess' eyes widened in horror.

"Where?"

The doctor shook her head, unknowing of where the Cradle was. Tess extended a hand, tracking through space to find the Cradle but the scepter blocked their signal. Tess shook her head and Steve began to move but Helen grabbed his arm.

"The real power is inside the Cradle. The gem…" Helen breathed heavily, "Its power is uncontainable. You can't just blow it up. You have to get the Cradle to Stark."

Tess pursed her lips as Steve told the woman, "First we have to find it."

"Go," Cho instructed and Tess finished healing the woman as best she could and the two left the lab.

"Did you guys copy that?"

" _We did_." Clint told Steve.

Natasha's voice filtered over the comms, " _I got a private jet taking off, across town, no manifest. That could be him_."

Clint seemed to notice something and relayed it onto the Rogers siblings, " _There. It's the truck from the lab. Right above you, Cap, Tess. On the loop by the bridge. It's them. I got three with the Cradle, one in the cab. I could take out the driver_."

"Negative!" Tess called, trying to conserve as much of her power and had instead climbed the ladder attached to the roof, Steve right behind her. "Nothing else can blow up in our faces today!"

"If that truck crashes, the gem could level the city. We need to draw out Ultron," Steve continued and promptly jumped off the loop and onto the roof of the truck. Tess followed quickly, landing a lot more gracefully than her brother. Steve clambered down to the truck door as it was blasted open by Ultron. Tess opened a portal on top of the truck, peering in.

The doors were blasted open completely and trailed down along the road, "Well, he's definitely unhappy! I'm gonna try and keep him that way."

" _You're not a match for him, Cap._ "

Tess scowled and levitated a robot out of the portal in the roof, before she roughly threw the robot over the side of the road. "Oh my God, Clint! Thanks for the vote of confidence!"

Steve huffed, still hanging onto the door, "Thanks, Barton."

Captain America tried to enter the truck, but was blasted back again, flying backwards onto a car. Steve managed to get back onto the roof of the truck as Tess desperately tried to fight off the remaining robot in the truck.

" _You know what's in that Cradle_?" Tess heard Ultron ask Steve, " _The power to make real change and that terrifies you_."

Getting tired of the robot, Tess floated out of another portal in the roof and landed beside Steve. The two smirked at each other, before replying in unison, "I wouldn't call it a comfort."

The blonde captain threw his shield at Ultron and Tess blasted an orb of Tesseract-blue energy. Blast and shield throws were exchanged before Steve's shield became lodged in Ultron's chest.

" _Stop it_!" Ultron snarled, throwing Steve's shield aside and blasting both of the Rogers siblings back. Steve rolled backwards, managing to stop himself from falling off the truck completely. Tess, unfortunately, flew backwards, past Ultron and got slammed into the road, barely missing a car speeding at her.

"Are you serious!?" Tess sneered, before she rolled over and fell through a portal. She promptly appeared in midair a far distance away, falling again, before she used her energy to catch herself.

" _I'm always picking up after you boys,_ " Tess heard Natasha say, and turned in midair to see the Black Widow riding through alleys, holding Steve's shield. Tess opened a portal—one that was directly in front of the assassin—and Natasha rode out, beside Steve on the truck. Nat threw the shield up to Steve. Tess appeared through a swirling mass of electric-blue energy and landed on the truck beside her brother.

"Steve!" Tess called, catching her brother with her powers as he tumbled off the truck, but he still landed on a car. Tess conjured up a shield of energy as Ultron blasted beams at her. She retaliated, firing back with just as much attitude.

The eldest avenger jumped back onto the truck, calling, "Come on!"

Managing to miss a punch from Ultron, Tess didn't miss the blast that singed the bright-blue tips of her hair. Clint hovered the Quinjet behind them, shooting at Ultron and drawing the one remaining Iron Legion out of the truck.

Steve and Tess continued fighting Ultron and Tess let out a scream of pain, receiving a point-blank shot of energy to the chest. The girl only redoubled her efforts and a shot of her own energy sent Ultron spiraling into a pillar. The robot flew back at Steve, the two slamming into a train.

"Shit! You fu—"

Tess was shut up by Natasha's call of, ' _Language_!'

" _They're heading back to you. So whatever you're doing, do it now_."

Steve threw his shield, facing off against Ultron by himself as Tess began to teleport citizens off the train, her brow furrowed in concentration and pain at the exertion. She hadn't used that much energy in a while and it was draining her.

" _I'm going in. Cap, Tess, can you keep him occupied?_ " Natasha asked and Tess' eyes widened in disbelief.

Steve huffed, "What do you think I've been doing?"

Tess slammed her hands into the bottom of the truck, opening portals under all the occupants of the train and one-by-one, people began to fall through, landing outside gently beside the still moving train.

"Tess!" Steve shouted to his sister, who was shaking and screaming in pain. The energy was leaking out of her at an alarming rate and Steve tried to continue dodging Ultron's fists and watch out for his little sister as well. A flash off silver pushed Ultron off Steve, and railing covered in red energy blocked Ultron.

" _Please_ ," Ultron pleaded, " _Don't do this_."

Tess fell to her side, panting, as the last of the passengers were out of the train. She was dedicated to being a hero and she wasn't about to let a single innocent to be harmed by Ultron's psycho vendetta.

"What choice do we have?" Wanda asked, standing in front of Tess to protect her. The girl was like her—damaged and powerful. Ultron blasted a hole through the front of the train, barely missing Pietro. His heart tightened in fear as the beam moved past him—slow motion at his speed.

Tess gasped in pain, feeling an overwhelming surge of panic and fear and a burning sensation in her chest and both girls looked down to see a glowing outline on top of her corset. The outline pulsed as they watched and Tess realised with a start…the energy was outlining her _heart_ as it beat in her chest.

"Pietro…" Wanda murmured, and the boy looked down to see an outline around his own heart. As he calmed, Tess blinked quickly and felt the fear recede and was taken over by a feeling of wonder—and absolute terror.

"I lost him! He's heading your way!" Steve called through the comms to Clint, running to the front of the train. It was absolutely ruined, shorting out and the driver was slumped over in the seat, dead.

Tess struggled to her feet, clutching a hand to her forehead, which was pounding. Her heart was still glowing, and she planned to think about it later, but right now, they had an out-of-control train to stop.

"Steve, we need to stop the train!" Tess called, her eyes and hands beginning to glow.

" _Nat!_ " Clint cried and he frantically asked, " _Cap, Tess, you see Nat?_ "

Tess' eyes widened in horror, "Ultron has Natasha!?"

"If you have the package, get it to Stark! Go!" Steve instructed and Tess frantically shook her head.

"No! We can't leave her with him!"

" _Do you have eyes on Nat?_ " Clint retorted, and Steve merely told him, 'Go!'

Tess saw the Quinjet take off and she swore in German, punching a glowing fist into the side of the train. The metal melted, warping around her fist and then shot out to grip one of the wheels of the train.

Steve turned to Pietro, "Civilians in our path."

Pietro sped off without a word and Steve turned to look at Tess and Wanda, "Can you stop this thing?"

Tess nodded immediately. No one would die on her watch - that was the one thing she always stood by. The remnants of what she used to be seemed to disappear when she saved lives. "Just give us some time."

 **XXXXX**

 _"_ _You're too nice."_

 _"_ _There is no such thing, Natalia."_

 _Natasha rolled her eyes at the other woman's formal use of her old name. They were in the SHIELD gym, Natasha just having gotten her ass handed to her by Tess and now the blue-eyed woman was bandaging Natasha's injured wrist with tenderness. "There is if it gets you killed, Tess."_

 _"_ _Perhaps I deserve to die," Tess offered. She was very much at her lowest point and self-hatred was a regular occurrence with her. But today, there was just acceptance—that one day she would die and it would not necessarily be on her own terms. Not in their line of work, anyway. "Perhaps we both do, Natalia. But tell me this: if I was not 'too nice,' as you put it, would you still be alive? Would I have let you live during and after our first meeting if I was not as 'gentle' as I am."_

 _The Black Widow fell silent. Their first meeting was not the kindest and Natasha had walked away almost beaten to death and Tess' eyes glowing with a vengeance as she was wheeled away on a gurney, paralyzed by the agent in Natasha's 'widow bites.' She had almost died and her only option was to play dirty._

 _"_ _I…" The redhead cleared her throat, "I guess not." She didn't add that maybe being nice wasn't a weakness—her words would've meant nothing because she didn't believe them. Natasha doubted she ever would, she had not been raised to see the gentle, kind things in life as a strength._

 _Tess nodded slowly, "Then, thank the gods that I am 'nice.' You were not my enemy back then but you were certainly not my friend. Think about how it would be if you were my mark—if you were truly my enemy. I would not have held back."_

 _The Romanoff woman watched as the blue-haired girl walked away. There was a strength, a power, to even the way she moved. Sly and deadly with that amount of grace that would've made the Red Room greedy to train her. The Russian assassin would never admit that Tess reminded her of someone—someone deadly and seductive, someone who could kill a man twice her size and still walk away like she owned the place. Someone who was desperate to keep herself from caring, to keep herself from loving someone. Someone desperate to avoid having a reason to die for another._

 _"_ _I know you wouldn't have."_

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **Ooh, something odd is going on between Pietro and Tess. The next chapter will delve deeper into their newfound connection and Tess will do some kickass superpowering. I hope you like the last part, just an insight on the bond Tess has with Natasha. Natasha respects Tess for her talents and abilities but she also sees a bit of herself in her too.**

 **Please review and tell me what you think!**

 **~ Raven**


	9. EIGHT

_**GLOWING HEARTS...**_

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** ** _LuckyGo_** **AND** _ **Gwendolyn Yuki.**_ **THANKS FOR REVIEWING! THIS CHAPTER ISN'T VERY GOOD, I'M JUST WARNING YOU**

* * *

The train ploughed through everything in its path, and Steve went flying backwards when a chunk of rock hit him. The train was empty, thanks to Tess' earlier quick-thinking and the young woman immediately sent out her Tesseract-blue energy. The energy wrapped around the train wheels, slowing their movement, and after a moment, Wanda added her own power to the mix.

The train began to slow but was still moving and Tess pushed more energy into the train, feeling it begin to give way around her. The metal walls started to cave in and the structure began to shake and warp. Wanda's eyes widened at how powerful Tess was, realising that the blue-eyed girl's power was so much stronger than her own. Briefly, the Maximoff girl thought back to her time as Strucker's experiment. She had heard the whispers of her own powers being a weaker version of a woman's powers which already existed.

The train finally stopped and Tess grunted out in pain. Wanda immediately ran out to Pietro, who was bent over and panting from moving people out of the train's path.

"I'm fine," he muttered. "I just need to take a minute."

"We're very tempted not to give you one." Wanda and Pietro turned. Steve and Tess walked over to the pair. Tess was out of breath, much like Pietro, and her heart was glowing again, just like his.

"The Cradle, did you get it?" Wanda asked quickly, watching silently as Tess walked over to Pietro and placed her palm over his chest. The energy…Tess was sure she knew where it came from, she just needed to make sure.

"Stark will take care of it."

Wanda moved back slightly, "No, he won't."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Stark's not crazy," Steve told her but paused when he saw Tess shaking her head.

"Steven." Steve frowned, worried. Tess never called him 'Steven' unless she was teasing him or saying something that was deadly serious. This occasion was the latter. "She is telling the truth. I love Anthony, he is my godson…but he is _more_ than capable. You know that. Remember Howard? That man would _never_ give up, even after his inventions exploded in his face— _literally_."

Although the Maximoff twins were startled by 'godson,' they couldn't help but be in awe of Tess. How old was she? How many connections did she have to the team they tried to destroy? Did it even matter—could she even _think_ of forgiving them?

"He will do anything to make things right," Wanda agreed, eyes swirling with absolute honesty.

Steve turned away, talking into the comms, "Stark, come in. Stark. Anyone on comms."

"Please, Tony," Tess begged, her voice frail, and she put her head in her hands. "Please, don't do this."

"Ultron can't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it." Wanda tilted her head slightly, accent thickening, "Where do you think he gets that?"

At Wanda's question, Tess let out a low groan, placing a hand against her forehead. She looked at her brother, "Genetics, I swear it, Steve. We have _got_ to stay away from Stark men, honestly." Tess stood and stretched leisurely, arms high above her head, "Steve, want a ride?"

"No," Steve placed his hands on Tess' shoulder, "Tessie, I need you to take the twins to your apartment. Evaluate Wanda's threat level and find out what is happening with your heart…and Pietro's. Then send it on to Stark."

"Will do, Cap." The blue-eyed girl shook her head with a grimace, "But I know what it is. And I can't reverse it." Tess pulled away, placing one hand on each other the twins' shoulders, "I'll see you at the Tower. Don't crash any planes…or bikes…or anymore trains!"

Steve nodded, smiling, and he watched as the three disappeared into a portal.

 **XXXXX**

"Activating all systems," Tess called, letting go of the twins. They stood in a large, high-rise apartment, decked out with new technology. The room lit up with lights and blueprints at the woman's words and the twins looked around in awe.

"What is this place?"

Tess grinned, "My apartment. I think I'm doing quite well for someone who was born in the forties."

"The forties?" Wanda questioned, brow furrowed and Tess brought up a file on the computer, as she performed small tests on Wanda to check how much of the scepter's energy was actually in her.

" _Amalia Schmidt. AKA Tess Rogers. Codename…Tesseract. Born September, 19_ _th_ _, 1940. Raised by the Nazi organization, HYDRA. Current agent of SHIELD, member of the Avengers. Father…Johann Schmidt, deceased. Mother…Unknown, deceased._ "

Tess stopped the computer from completing reading out her file, finished with the test, meeting the two stunned gazes staring at her, "I'm just like you. I became a weapon for HYDRA. I fought for them, I killed for them…except, I _died_ for them." The woman extended a hand to Wanda, her hand filled with her electric-blue energy, "My blood was what made your powers possible, Wanda."

Wanda held out a hand of her own energy, noticing how similar it was. It would be identical to Tess', if not for the red colour.

"And Pietro," Tess turned to the boy, a frown on her face, "You touched the tree, didn't you? The one I hit with my powers in our first fight in Sokovia." Pietro shrugged, eyes alight with mischief and Tess grimaced, suspicions confirmed, "Thought so…and I can't do a thing about it. Now let's go and stop my stupid godson before he makes another murder bot."

Tess stepped closer to Pietro to move around him. Wanda frowned, every time they got close, the witch could see an electric-blue tether connected between their hearts. Judging by the fact that neither had mentioned it, Wanda assumed that only she could see the literal connection.

The silver-haired boy's eyes widened, _that_ wasn't an answer, and he opened his mouth to speak, but he soon found himself stepping out of a portal alongside his sister in front of the Avengers Tower. Tess looked to her right, seeing Steve beside her and she grinned.

"Look at that, all caught up," without waiting, the black-haired woman with the bright-blue tips sashayed away from them, a smirk on her lips.

 **XXXXX**

"I'm gonna say this once," Steve said, looking at Tony and Bruce, the twins and Tess beside him.

"How about 'nonce'?" Tony retorted and Tess lifted a brow.

"Shut it down!"

Tony turned away, "Nope, not gonna happen."

Tess lifted glowing hands, her eyes glinting dangerously. "Look at what happened with Ultron. Look at what happened to SHEILD and what happened to HYDRA. You don't know what you're doing!"

"And you do?" Bruce asked, and indicated Wanda, "She's not in your head?"

Wanda moved forward, "I know you're angry."

"Oh, we're way past that. I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade," Bruce threatened and Tess scoffed.

"Like you could get past me, Bruce. You trusted me when you found out what I could do. Trust me now, trust me that I have complete and utter faith in the Maximoffs," Tess requested, a pleading look on her face. She hadn't realised that as she spoke, that her hand had twined with Pietro's and that he had pulled her closer to him and away from Bruce.

"Banner, after everything that's happened…" Steve started, only to be cut off by Tony.

"That's nothing compared to what's coming!"

Wanda protested, "You don't know what's in there!"

"Tony…" Tony paused at his godmother's voice, "I can see all of space. I see all the heroes, all the villains and all the monsters—the battles lost and the battles won. And you know what I've learnt?"

"That you should stop spying on people?" Tony asked, brow raised.

Tess sighed heavily, "This is serious. What I have learnt is that no matter what…you cannot make a villain play a hero. They change by themselves. What you have done, is made a monster with the best of intentions— _Ultron_ —and now…" Tess gestured to the Cradle, "You want to _make_ the monster's creation a hero, to fight the monster."

Tony opened his mouth, about to retort, and Pietro rolled his eyes and used his speed to pull all the wires and lab equipment out of the Cradle. "No, no. Go on. You were saying?"

A gunshot suddenly echoed through the room and Pietro fell through the glass fall.

"Pietro!" Wanda and Tess cried out in unison and the latter teleported beside him.

Barton stood in front of the two, "What, you didn't see that coming?"

Tess shot him a dead look. Tony began to reroute the upload to the Cradle and Steve threw his shield, destroying the lab equipment and Tony fired back a shot with his Iron Man gauntlet.

Wanda's hands began to glow and Bruce grabbed her from behind in a chokehold, telling her, "Go ahead, piss me off."

Clint loaded his gun and Tess opened a portal, teleporting herself, Clint and Pietro up to where the others were fighting. Her energy short-circuited Tony's partial-suit, threw Bruce off Wanda and kept the two different sides on opposite sides of a wall of energy.

"I'm so done with this…this _civil war_!

 **XXXXX**

 _"_ _Deep breaths, sweetie," Laura Barton instructed gently. Despite Tess' protests, the woman refused to let go of the younger woman's thin shoulders. "Come on, you can do this. You're strong, Tessie."_

 _Tess fought against the rising panic, the tightening in her chest. For years, panic attacks had become a fixture in her life and, more often than not, she would deal with them herself. But Cooper, Clint's eldest, had triggered one of them while Tess had been at the Barton household._

 _"_ _I'm okay," Tess muttered. "I'm okay. I'm okay."_

 _Laura smiled encouragingly, "Yes, you are. Come on, Tessie, breathe for me."_

 _"_ _I kinda have to breathe," Tess scoffed, a smile tugging at her lips. "Or, you know, I'd die." Gently, Tess removed the Barton woman's hands from her shoulder and squeezed them with a thankful smile on her lips. "Thank you, for being so good to me, Laura."_

 _"_ _Of course," Laura nodded and drew the blue-eyed woman into a much-needed hug. "You're family."_

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **If I wrote another Avengers, Pietro / OC (with a new OC) would anyone read it. R** **eview and let me know.**

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **~ Raven**


	10. NINE

_**DON'T MESS WITH LIGHTNING, KIDS...**_

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** ** _LuckyGo, Cari_** **AND** _ **Gwendolyn Yuki.**_

* * *

Tess cried out suddenly, shoulders shaking, eyes and hands glowing more than they had ever seen them. The outline around her heart had returned, as had Pietro's and she moved swiftly to the Cradle, raveling her energy around it.

Tess froze suddenly, almost eerily. She looked like she was in a trance, eyes glowing brightly, and she spoke quietly, " _It must live_."

Just as her powers encased the Cradle, Thor entered the room and sent his lightning through the Cradle, ignoring Bruce's startled call of 'wait!' Still touching the Cradle, Tess screamed in agony and Pietro yelled out as well, feeling what could only be Tess' pain, as electricity arced through her body.

Thor drew his hammer away and Tess collapsed to the floor, convulsing. Pietro was beside her in a second, rocking her in his arms. The Cradle exploded, throwing Thor away and a robot-like figure jumped out. He stared around, and the Avengers and Maximoff twins watched him closely.

Suddenly, the robot launched himself forward at Thor, who threw him out of the lab. The robot – the new creation – stopped before he flew out of the window and stared at his reflection. Thor and Steve left the lab to stare at the robot, who stayed completely still. Electricity still crackled in Tess' body and she winced as Pietro helped her stand. The two seemed to be more connected and the outline around their hearts grew in strength. All the Avengers, after staring at Pietro and Tess closely, made their way down to where Thor and Steve were.

"I'm sorry, that was…odd," the creature apologized, landing and looking to Thor, "Thank you."

The robot created a cape and Steve asked gruffly, "Thor, Tess, you helped create this?"

"Don't mess with lightning kids," Tess drawled, feeling the last effects of the lightning wear off. Tess moved her arms, thanking the Super Serum in her blood for her quick recovery. She could still tasted metal in her mouth though, like chewing on tin foil.

"I've had a vision. A whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life and at it's center is that." Thor pointed at the gem inside the creature's head.

"What, the gem?" Bruce asked and Tess, still wincing walked over to the table where Thor placed his hammer.

"It's the Mind Stone," Tess supplied, making everyone look at the girl, "It's one of the six Infinity Stones, the greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in its destructive capabilities. The Mind Stone created the twins' powers and the Space Stone, in the Tesseract, created mine. And now, the Mind Stone has created…" She paused, " _Vision_."

"Then why would you bring it to…"

"Because Stark is right," Thor admitted.

"Oh, it's definitely the end times," Bruce commented, just as Tess said, "Never thought I'd see the day."

"The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron."

"Not alone," Vision added.

Vision walked towards them and Steve asked, "Why does your 'Vision' sound like JARVIS?"

"We…we reconfigured JARVIS' matrix to create something new," Tony told Steve, looking proud with himself.

Steve scoffed, "I think I've had my fill of new."

Tess grinned teasingly, "Brother dearest, you are such an old man."

"You think I'm a child of Ultron?" Visions asked.

Steve didn't miss a beat, questioning, "You're not?"

"I'm not Ultron. I'm not JARVIS. I am…" Vision trailed off before he decided what he was, "I am."

"You're right, darling. _You are_." Tess added softly, feeling strangely maternal towards Vision, "Do not choose what you are straight away, you have time."

Vision smiled, warmed by the blue-eyed woman's caring nature. He knew Thor gave him life, but Tess had imbued him with some of her morals. Her magic was an extension of herself – pure Tess-ness that was now a part of Vision.

"I looked in your head and saw annihilation," Wanda warned them, stepping closer to the reddish-skinned man and Vision blinked at her.

"Look again," Vision offered.

Clint scoffed, "Yeah. Her seal of approval means jack to me."

"Then what about mine?" Tess asked as she reached into Vision's head. "Warmth, happiness. The want – no, _need_ – to belong somewhere, to have a home. The joy of saving people and the continuation of the human race."

"Their powers, the horrors in our heads, Ultron himself, they all came from the Mind Stone, and they're nothing compared to what it can unleash." Thor told the team, "And Tess, the sole manipulator of the Space Stone, whose powers know no bounds. But with them on our side…"

"Is it?" Steve interrupted, looking at Vision, "Are you? On our side?"

From her place near Thor's hammer, Tess raised a brow, "Uh… _insulting_. First off, he's basically my _kid_. And second off, _he_ shouldn't be pressured right now about anything."

Vision bobbed his head in thanks to Tess but his brows remained furrowed, "I don't think it's that simple."

Tess missed Clint's threat, instead running her fingers over Thor's hammer, "I think I speak for both myself and Vision – we are on the side of life. Ultron is not, he will end it _all_."

"What's he waiting for?" Tony questioned.

"You," Vision stated simply.

"Where?" Bruce asked.

"Sokovia," Clint supplied, "He's got Nat there too."

Bruce walked closer to Vision, "If we're wrong about you, if you're the monster that Ultron made you to be…"

"What will you do?" Vision asked, looking around and seeing that they would destroy him. "I don't want to kill Ultron. He's unique, and he's in pain. But that pain will roll over the earth, so he must be destroyed. Every form he's built, every trace of his presence on the net, we have to act now. And not one of us can do it without the others." Vision lifted up his hands, looking at them, "Maybe I am a monster. I don't think I'd know if I were one. I'm not what you are, and not what you intended. So there may be no way to make you trust me."

Tess put her hand to Vision's arm, "I trust you. We need to go, we can have this debate another time." The blue-eyed girl casually handed Vision Thor's hammer. Vision held it carefully – easily – and Tess laughed at the shocked looks on the other's faces. Vision passed the hammer to Thor, who glanced at the hammer and then Vision. He walked away as Thor took the hammer.

The others were all speechless, while Tess laughed again. "Right," Thor said and patted Tony's shoulder, "Well done."

"Three minutes," Steve instructed, "Get what you need."

 **XXXXX**

Tess led the twins to the closet, allowing them to get what they needed. Tess passed Pietro a pair of running shoes and better athletic wear. Wanda stood staring out the window, watching Thor and Vision speak.

"He's interesting, isn't he?" Wanda started and looked at Tess, who was standing beside her, holding out a red leather jacket.

"Who?" Wanda asked, trying to play it off.

Tess grinned, winked and helped Wanda into the jacket, "Vision."

Without waiting for Wanda's answer, Tess returned to her part of the closet, and slid her knives into her holsters and her long, elbow-length, buckled gloves. Feeling a presence behind her, Tess turned and met Pietro's light eyes.

The outline around his heart had appeared on his chest, and Tess knew hers was there too. The blue-eyed girl pressed her hand against the Maximoff boy's chest, protectively splaying over his heart. "Be safe."

Pietro grinned down at Tess. They had only known each other for a short time, but somehow Pietro touching the energy from the tree had bonded their hearts. Tess had always scoffed at the thought of 'true love' or 'soulmates,' but somehow…Pietro made her feel like that could be a possibility for her. Tess had always been too volatile and unruly and she had shut out a lot of people, in the fear that she would hurt them. And yet…Wanda and Pietro had become a part of her small, Avengers family.

"I promise. Be safe." Pietro mumbled back and Tess nodded, a promise in their hearts.

 **XXXXX**

 _The baby was small and wiggled little fists at her._

 _Tess cooed lightly, dropping down to her knees beside the infant wrapped only in a blanket. The little boy was nameless and parentless and Tess felt her heart crack a little in her chest. All alone—with no one to love him._

 _But social services was coming the next day for him and Tess, despite knowing the baby would not stay with her, she'd opened her heart to him. Like a fool. The woman carefully picked the boy up, cradling him to her as Steve walked into the room._

 _"_ _Oh, Tessie," Steve sighed, watching the way Tess held the baby, like he was going to disappear if she let go even a little bit. "You got close."_

 _"_ _I know."_

 _Tess had been the one to find the boy, after all, and had rescued him from having the same fate as his mother, who had been murdered by a HYDRA agent. The agent had been about to fire a Tesseract-fueled weapon at the wailing baby but had been stopped by Tess being thrown through the wall of the house they were in._

 _"_ _You need to let him go," Steve murmured quietly, reaching out to wrap his arms around his sister and the baby. "He's going to be given to a nice family and he'll live out in the countryside, safe from all of this."_

 _"_ _I know," Tess repeated brokenly, tears gathering in her eyes. She held the baby closer, cooing to him as he gurgled at her and she let the tears fall. "Oh, god, Steve. I know."_

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **UNEDITED**

 **We've got a bit more of the sweet scenes between Pietro and Tess and we've got Mother!Tess, which I think is really cute. THe chapter is a bit short though and I'm slowly writing that spin-off, kind-of Pietro / OC story but it's taking a while (I have a lack of inspiration at the moment).**

 **Please review!**

 **~ Raven**


	11. TEN

_**YOU NEVER HAVE PLANS...**_

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** _ **FoxGurrl, Guest,**_ _ **Angel1D98** _**AND _Cari_** _ **.**_ **I'M SORRY FOR BEING MIA FOR SO LONG BUT I HOPE YOU LIKE THE CHAPTER!**

* * *

"No way we all get through this. If even one tin soldier is left standing, we've lost. It's gonna be blood on the floor."

"I got no plans tomorrow night," Steve told the men and his sister.

"Please," Tess drawled, pulling her hair up into a ponytail, "The only plans you ever have are with the Avengers or me. Maybe you should have let Nat set a date up for you after all. I mean, you're not getting any younger."

Steve pursed his lips at her and Tony grinned, high-fiving her. They grew serious again as Tony spoke, "I get first crack at the big guy. Iron Man's the one he's waiting for."

Vision wandered past, "That's true, he hates you the most."

Tony turned his head slowly, watching the caped-man walk past. He sent Tess the same expression Steve had sent her – deadpanned and lips pursed. "He really is your kid."

Tess hummed with pride.

 **XXXXX**

 _The Rogers woman repressed a sob as she handed the baby over to the woman who was already surrounded by little children—all orphans, all underfed and under loved. Tess knew she couldn't offer the baby in her arms safety but she could offer him love._

 _But she also knew Steve hovered behind her, planning their next attack on another HYDRA base and her responsibility lay with them._

 _"_ _I'll find you," Tess whispered to the baby and gently passed him over to the woman, who cradled him gently and bustled away into the crowd with her other children. And then he was gone._

 **XXXXX**

Steve was debriefing the team. Usually, Tess helped him do it, but this time, Tess sat beside Pietro, her hand clutched in his.

"Ultron knows we're coming. Odds are we'll be riding into heavy fire, and that's what we signed up for. But the people of Sokovia, they didn't. So our priority is getting them out."

 **XXXXX**

Pietro sped into a police station, Tess teleporting into the station alongside him. "We're under attack! Clear the city, now!" The boy ran out, Tess staying behind and watching with a smirk. Not a single person in the station moved and he reappeared with a gun, shooting into the ceiling, "Get off your asses!"

Tess teleported out into the street. She stepped out of the portal beside Wanda, who was using her mind manipulation to make the people leave. Tess added her own power, accelerating the process.

 **XXXXX**

"All they want is to live their lives in peace, and that's not going to happen today. But we can do our best to protect them. And we can get the job done, and find out what Ultron's been building." Steve continued, "We find Romanoff, and we clear the field. Keep the fight between us. Ultron thinks we're monsters and we're what's wrong with the world. This isn't just about beating him. It's about whether he's right."

 **XXXXX**

Tess opened portals on the side of buildings. Anyone who was willing to walk through electric-blue circles was able to, and it cleared up quite a bit of the congestion out of the city. Ultron's army began to attack, clawing their way out of the ground. Blasts were fired and people were screaming and running.

"Go!" Steve yelled, gesturing to people to run.

Tess stepped in between a woman and her child and a robot, and with a quick motion, the blue-eyed girl slammed her hand into the robot's chest and ripped out half of it's insides. The young woman heard Wanda instructing people, "Get off the bridge!"

A shield of red energy sprung up, protecting the people. Wanda called, "Run!" Her moment of distraction enabled the robot to blast her. Wanda hit the ground and in a second, Tess had teleported in front of her, slashing blue energy at the robot.

"Are you okay?" Tess asked Wanda as she helped her up, and at the brunette's nod, she teleported away.

Tess' energy slashed out as she teleported around the city and she destroyed robots. The blue-eyed girl gasped as the city began to shake and crumble. Tesseract flew into the air and stared, opening portals under the people who were falling. Sokovia was…flying…

" _Do you see? The beauty of it, the inevitability. You rise, only to fall. You, Avengers, you are my meteor, my swift and terrible sword and the earth will crack with the weight of your failure. Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh against me. It means nothing. When the dust settles, the only thing living in this world will be metal_."

Ultron hovered above the city, speaking through his army in Sokovia, and getting annoyed, Tess threw blue energy at the robot, causing him to spiral to the ground and Tess watched, still floating.

"Oh, for the love of God," Tess drawled, "Shut up, you piece of scrap metal."

 **XXXXX**

Tess felt the pinching in her chest. Pietro was feeling so much pain and anger, worried that he would lose the only place he would ever call home. If he didn't calm down soon, he would have a panic attack and none of them needed that.

"Pietro!" Tess teleported behind him and called loudly, making the man stop for a moment and run back to her. Without thinking about it, Tess pressed her lips against the Sokovian speedster's. Her own worry mingled with his. There was an intense feeling of dread in her chest that Tess tried to stop Pietro from feeling. She pulled away, smiled gently at his stunned look and grabbed his hand, "Be safe."

She teleported away and Pietro smiled, his eyes dazed. "Anything for you."

 **XXXXX**

" _Cap, you got incoming_."

Steve groaned, trying to get up from the car he had been thrown onto. Tess ran up to him and helped him up as he grumpily muttered, "Incoming already came in. Stark, you worry about bringing the city back down safely. The rest of us have one job: tear these things apart. You get hurt, hurt 'em back. You get killed, walk it off."

"Come on, don't we ever catch a break," Tess muttered, watching Ultron's army fly in. She turned suddenly to Steve and pulled him into a quick hug. "I love you, big brother."

Steve hugged her back, just as tight. "I love you too, little sister."

 **XXXXX**

Electric-blue energy was flying everywhere, shooting in solid orbs through the robots' chests. She was punching and kicking the robots away, creating portals that cut robots in half and impaling the robots with knives.

A car began to fall off the broken edge of the bridge and Steve grabbed it. The bumper broke off the car and the car plummeted off the bridge, the woman inside screaming as she fell. Thor reached the car and threw the woman up to Steve, who almost fell off in the process of catching her. "I got you! Just look at me."

The woman looked up and Steve pulled them up. Tess sighed and threw herself off the edge of the bridge and opened up a portal. The woman was swallowed up into the portal and landed on the bridge. Tess put Steve through a portal and both reappeared.

A robot ran at the Rogers siblings, " _You can't save them all. You'll never_ …"

Steve threw his shield into the robot and used the magnetic feature to pull the shield back to him, robot still attached. Tess tossed the robot over her shoulders.

"You'll never what?" Steve yelled at the falling robot.

Tess grinned, "You didn't finish!"

Thor suddenly landed back on the bridge with the other car that had fallen off the bridge. The three walked away as Steve questioned, "What, were you napping?"

 **XXXXX**

Tess slashed at the robots, pulling off metal limbs and throwing them through inter-dimensional portals, only to pull them back in pieces. Her knives slashed through metal and her chaos magic warped the metal bodies of the robots into complicated patterns. Tess' chaos magic engulfed the ground, spiraling up to the robots and tearing them to pieces.

Wanda was powerful, but Tess had had an entire seventy years more to use her powers and to extend their limits.

" _Alright, we're all clear here._ " Clint told them over the comms and Steve slammed his shield into a robot.

"We are not clear! We are very not clear!"

" _Alright, coming to you_."

Over the comms, Tess could hear a whooshing sound that she could only assume was Pietro and him yelling, " _Keep up old man_."

" _Nobody would know. Nobody._ " Clint grumbled, "' _The last I saw him, when Ultron was sitting on him. Uh...yeah, he'll be missed, that quick little bastard. I miss him already._ '"

Tess grinned, appearing in front of Clint, "I would know. And I would miss him." Tess grabbed Clint's shoulder and teleported them back to the others.

 **XXXXX**

Tess teleported to the twins, adding her own psionic blasts to destroy the Ultron copies.

"Hold your fire!" A police officer shouted as the two witch's used their powers but Tess gasped and paused, grabbing her arm in an attempt to heal herself.

Pietro stopped running, turning back to look at the officer who had fired and grazed him with the bullet. The man spread his arms out in an 'are-you-kidding-me' motion and Tess glared fiercely at the officer. Sighing and stepping back, Tess observed her handy-work. Apparently healing Pietro's arm seemed to make Tess' own arm heal.

 **XXXXX**

Tess appeared beside Steve, talking to Tony on the comms. "The next wave's gonna hit any minute. What have you got, Stark?"

" _Well, nothing great. Maybe a way to blow up the city. That'll keep it from impacting the surface if you guys can get clear."_

"I asked for a solution, not an escape plan," Steve replied.

" _Impact radius is getting bigger every second. We're going to have to make a choice._ "

"Cap," Natasha said, "These people are going nowhere. If Stark finds a way to blow this rock..."

"Not 'til everyone's safe."

"Everyone up here versus everyone down there?" Natasha asked incredulously, "There's no math there."

Tess shook her head, "I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it. And I'm sure Steve agrees."

"I didn't say we should leave." Steve and Tess turned to look at Natasha, who was gazing out over everything below them, "There's worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?"

" _Glad you like the view, Romanoff. It's about to get better._ " Nick Fury's voice came over the comms and Tess grinned as the Helicarrier came into view, " _Nice, right? I pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do._ "

Tess jumped up, punching a fist in the air, "Fury, you son of a bitch!"

" _Oooh!_ " The former director of SHIELD teased and Tess' grin widened, " _You kiss your mother with that mouth_?"

Pietro ran over to the trio, watching the Helicarrier, "This is SHEILD?"

"This is what SHEILD's supposed to be," Tess told him, sliding her hand into his. Pietro smiled down at the blue-eyed girl.

"This is not so bad."

Tess smiled, "I know."

The small ships began to stop alongside the edge of Sokovia and Steve turned, instructing, "Let's load 'em up."

 **XXXXX**

 _He was seventy-years-old and bleary-eyed when she found him again. He was dying and Tess didn't even know his name; he hadn't had one while Tess had known him. His many family members surrounded him—sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He had forgotten almost everything but he would never forget his life in Germany, under the thumb of the controlling woman who had raised him or how he had run to America the first chance he had. He had forgotten had to speak English too and when he rambled about his earliest memories, his family would write it off as the insane ramblings of a German man who was scarred deeply by his past._

 _Tess smiled rather lovingly as the old man looked up through the glass window at her. His brow furrowed for a moment, seeming to find something familiar about her. But he could not have known her, he was only a baby when she had saved him and he had grown._

 _Oh, how he had grown and she had missed it all._

 _Tess stepped back, tears threatening to spill as she finally walked away, leaving another reminder of her past in her wake. He had become such a wonderful young man—a man Peggy had enlisted personally as a SHIELD agent and then, when his time came, he had settled down and left the life behind._

 _That was something Tess and Steve could never do._

 _And so, she turned her back on the elderly_ Roger Davis _as he smiled, never once forgetting the beautiful vibrant eyes which had hovered above him as she sung him to sleep as an infant, and let his eyes slip shut._

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **UNEDITED**

 **This chapter is kind of a filler and I swear, the flashbacks are my favorite part. I wanted Tess to be a bit more personal and to show what she lost, because we already know what Steve lost.**

 **PLEASE REVIEW!**

 **~ Raven**


	12. ELEVEN

_**SHOW NO WEAKNESS...**_

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

* * *

 **THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO** _ **Spunky89,**_ ** _EverRose808,_** _ **Guest,**_ _ **AngelWings98,**_ ** _Miss Bonnie Madness_ AND ****_Cari_** _ **.**_ **I'M SORRY FOR BEING MIA FOR SO LONG BUT I HOPE YOU LIKE THE CHAPTER!**

* * *

Opening portals was beginning to take it's toll on Tess, but she continued, opening portals for people to go straight to the ships. Walls of energy protected the people from being shot down by Ultron's army. Tess sighed as her arms began to shake.

 _Amalia, Amalia, why do you continue to fight? Would it not just be so much easier to give up? To just sit down and welcome death with open arms like you had been willing to so many years before?_

"Alright, let's load 'em up! Alright, here we go. Here we go, let's move. Let's go everyone!" Clint was ushering people onto the 'life boats,' Wanda helping him. Glancing around, the man noticed Tess and ran over to her. "Are you okay?"

Tess hid the droplets of blood falling from her nose, "I'm okay. I promise."

Without another word, Tess shut down her connection to Pietro, hoping he wouldn't notice the change in her mind, her heart, and teleported away. Like Tony said, there was _no way_ they were all getting out of this.

 **XXXXX**

The Avengers met up where the Vibranium core was. Ultron's robots were closing in and Tess fired blast at every robot she saw, trying desperately not to hit anyone. Pietro hurried over to Wanda who walked in with Clint while Tess headed to Steve and pulled him into a quick hug.

"Is that the best you can do?" Thor bellowed and Ultron summoned the rest of his army to him. They hovered in front of them, big and imposing, and the Asgardian swallowed uneasily.

Steve and Tess exchanged a look, before speaking in sync, "You had to ask."

"This is the best I can do," Ultron told the team, "This is exactly what I wanted. All of you, against all of me. How could you possibly hope to stop me?

"Well, like the old man said. Together." The Hulk's roar punctuated Tony's statement and the robots launched forward.

Tess fired psionic blasts, warped the metal of the robots and pulled bodies apart with her telekinesis. She opened portals, trapping heads in deep space and halved-bodies in other dimensions. Tess fought as hard as she could – but she was absolutely exhausted. Her energy was draining but she ignored it, and kept fighting – they _needed_ to protect the core. Tess back-flipped, flinging a full arc of robots away from her and into the wall.

Ultron flew in, throwing Vision against a wall, before Vision returned the favor. Ultron was thrown out of the building and Vision turned the power of the Mind Stone on him. Thor added the lightning from his hammer, Tony added his repulsors and Tess added her own Space Stone energy. Ultron began to break apart from the force and looked incredibly damaged when they stopped the onslaught of power.

"You know, with the benefit of hindsight…" Ultron didn't finish as the Hulk hit him, sending him flying. The robots began to retreat and jumped off the edge of the floating country.

 **XXXXX**

"We gotta move out. Even I can tell the air is getting thin. You guys get to the boats, I'll sweep for stragglers, be right behind you."

Clint looked at Steve, "What about the core?"

"I'll protect it," Wanda offered, looking at Clint, "It's my job."

Clint, Natasha and Steve ran off, leaving Tess and Pietro, who just ran in, with Wanda. "Get the people on the boats."

"I'm not going to leave you here," Pietro protested.

"I can handle this." A robot suddenly ran in and Wanda fired a blast at it, destroying it. She shot her brother a look as if to say 'see?' "Come back for me when everyone else is off, not before." Pietro hummed, scooping Tess up into his arms as Wanda prompted, "You understand?"

"You know, I'm twelve minutes older than you," Pietro reminded his twin and Wanda chuckled.

"Go."

"Stay safe," Tess called, quickly grabbing Wanda's hand in a small, comforting squeeze, before Pietro shot off like a blur, holding her close.

 **XXXXX**

 _Be safe. Stay safe._ Safe was never a good word for an Avenger.

The world seemed to lose all sound. All she could hear was her own voice screaming as Ultron fired at Clint and a little boy from a jet. She could see the sick pleasure on his metallic face from where she was standing.

The world seemed to slow down. All she could see was Pietro running forward to shield Clint and the little boy in his arms with a car.

The world seemed to stop. All she could feel was the blazing pain in her chest and her arms as the bullets tore through…

 _Her_.

All that mattered, was that _he_ was safe.

Tess smiled softly turning to look at Pietro to whisper, "You didn't see that coming."

"No!" Pietro cried, tears in his eyes as Tess' body fell backwards against his. Clint stood up, moving towards the girl he thought of as family.

Bullet wounds littered her chest and arms and she felt completely weightless as Pietro lowered her to the ground.

Tess stared up at him, trying to memorize his features. Pietro let out a sob, "Why? Why did you teleport in front of me?"

 **XXXXX**

Wanda fell to her knees, screaming out in pain and horror. Her powers lashed out, disintegrating all the robots all around her.

All she could feel was her twin's pain…as he held the woman he loved as she died. She could feel her brother's heart break.

All she could feel was Tess' pain…as she tried to mask it from the man she loved. She could feel the woman, who made _her_ possible, begin to fade.

 **XXXXX**

"Because I love you."

And she did. When Tess was a child, she had always felt like love was a foreign concept, but the Avengers were family to her and she loved them. In the short time Tess had known them, Wanda and Pietro had become part of that family and Pietro – most likely because of the bond – had become the love of Tess' impossibly long life. She didn't believe in love at first sight or soulmates.

But Tess Rogers loved Pietro Maximoff.

"I love you too," Pietro held her closer to him, almost like he could make Tess feel his love for her through his chest and that it would keep her alive. He quickly became frantic; Pietro couldn't feel Tess' pain through the bond they shared. "Why can't I feel it? Why doesn't it hurt?"

"Because I took the pain away." Tess' head lolled slightly, still memorizing his face, before she grasped Pietro's hand tightly, "Don't let go of my hand. Whatever you do, don't let go."

And he didn't.

 **XXXXX**

Steve ran over to the group and almost fell over. He had seen the flash of blue and the car moving and had expected Pietro to be dying or bleeding out.

But instead it was his little sister.

"Tessie?" Steve asked quietly, his voice breaking as he knelt down beside the girl. Tess blinked slowly, weakened beyond even the hope of healing herself.

 _Stevie? I know Bucky's gone but you have me. You will_ always _have me_.

"I love you, Steven Grant Rogers," Tess cracked a smile, like she always did when she said her brother's full name. "You were the best big brother I could ever ask for."

 _Thank you, Tess. And you'll always have me._

Steve dropped to his knees beside Tess and held her right hand, just as tightly as Pietro was holding her left. She had always promised herself that she wouldn't have a sappy death, full of 'I love you' and other nonsense. But it didn't matter now.

"I love you all so, so much," Tess whispered sadly, content in some aspects, before her eyes closed and she didn't breathe again. Her chest stayed still and, even after all the dead bodies he'd seen, Steve's hands still shot out to search for a heartbeat. And when he didn't find one, Steve fell back on his hunches, sobbing into his hands.

Gently, as if he would wake her, Pietro picked the girl he loved up, crying as quietly as he dared, and moved to the boats.

 **XXXXX**

Pietro laid her down carefully as Steve walked away.

His eyes were glazed over and Steve really didn't know where he was walking. Just that he was and that Tess wasn't beside him like she always had been. He now knew what it must have felt like for Tess for twenty years, watching and waiting for him to wake up. But this time, Tess wasn't waking up.

He wasn't as strong as Tess was and he couldn't look at her, so prone and riddled with bullets. So frail and damaged. So very lifeless.

She had always been volatile and unruly. Brave and selfless. Strong and loving. So full of fire and kindness, even after years of being a HYDRA soldier. Even after she had lost all that she cared for, over and over again, she got back up and hit back with ten times as much power as the force that she was knocked down by.

So instead, he left to find a better, more private, place to cry. Bucky was gone. Tess was gone. Steve Rogers' family was leaving him…one by one…

Pietro sat beside her, still holding her hand. He had promised he wouldn't let go, and even now, holding her hand comforted him. Clint sat down on the seats, waved away a medic and lay down beside Tess, staring at the young girl's pale body. He had always said she was family, but that was wrong. She was a daughter to him, even being older than him by decades.

"Oh, it's been a long day."

 **XXXXX**

Wanda moved elegantly on the train, her cheeks tear-tracked. Pietro loved Tess. Wanda had seen her as a sister—had loved her as a sister, hoped that she would one day help Wanda with her powers and stand by her side. They had been kin through the Infinity Gems but Tess had opened her arms wide to them and had made her family do the same. Wanda had felt Pietro's pain as Tess died and then… _mind-numbing loss_. Her red energy weaved around her fingers, illuminating her hand, the power already beginning to jump around wildly as her emotions took over and made her chest burn with what could only be described as the need to _kill_.

Wanda knelt down with just as much grace and elegance as she had admired in Tess.

" _Wanda_ ," a broken, beaten Ultron murmured. " _If you stay here, you'll die_."

"I just did. Do you know how it felt?" Wanda used her powers to rip into Ultron's chest and pulled the core out of his body. It looked like a heart but like she expected, cold and metal. "It felt like that."

 **XXXXX**

" _She's dead._ " Steve's voice cracked. " _Tess is dead_."

The softly-spoken words echoed over the comms.

Tony felt a restricting tightness in his chest – his godmother, his _only_ family left in the world, was gone. She had held him every anniversary of his parents' death, had cried with him and then the next morning, made sure that he always sat down with her to eat breakfast and just… _smile_.

Thor's shoulders slumped – Tess had always been so strong and brave, an honorary Asgardian. She had taught him about Midgardian technology and how to use it and had helped him reconnect with his Jane.

Tears escaped Natasha's eyes—it couldn't be true! Tess had helped Natasha lose the assassin façade and actually embrace her emotions. She had supported her, urged her to open herself up to Bruce and to finally get her shot at happiness.

Roaring softly, the Hulk glanced around—Tess had accepted him all the time and tried to help him as much as she could. She never looked at the Hulk differently than she had looked at Bruce Banner.

Vision floated down to the ground – she had been maternal to him, had defended him and supported him. Tess had helped give him life by adding her own energy to Thor's and now…now there was no life left in her.

 **XXXXX**

Sokovia suddenly fell.

Steve just managed to jump onto a boat.

Tony poured all the energy he had into the Vibranium core.

Thor summoned lightning.

Vision saved Wanda from certain death.

Thor hit the core with the lightning.

Sokovia exploded.

And Tess' last gift—the last thing she did before she died as the magic leaked from her body and stained the ground alongside her blood—wrapped energy around every living person from Sokovia in a Tesseract-blue shield, keeping them safe when Tess couldn't do it personally.

Because, even in death, Tess Rogers was doing the one thing she had always wanted to do; _save people_.

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **UNEDITED**

 **One more chapter and then it's the epilogue. _Volatile_ is almost done, for the second time now that I'm editing, and it hurts me!**

 **PLEASE REVIEW!**

 **~ Raven**


	13. TWELVE

**_THE HERO'S CREATION..._**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own no part of the Avengers (I wish I did). All rights belong to Marvel. I only own the character Tess Rogers / Tesseract / Amalia Schmidt and her plot and dialogue.**

 _ **I'M SORRY FOR MAKING PEOPLE CRY. I LOVE YOU ALL, MAKING YOU SAD WASN'T INTENTIONAL!**_

* * *

They didn't have the heart to bury her, deep in the earth where she could deteriorate.

They couldn't cremate her either and let her blow away in the wind.

They just couldn't let her go as if she had never existed. Like she had never meant so much to them.

So, they put her in the cryogenic tube they had available. It was just as much for her preservation as it was for them all.

When they had returned to the Tower, Pietro had refused to let go of her hand. Steve and Wanda had to pry him away and their hearts had cracked further as they had listened to him sob into his sister's hair and beg for the universe to give Tess back to them all. He'd gone on for hours in English and then the language had changed, whispering begs in a language only Wanda could understand and she had only enough time to escape into a different room before she had collapsed to her knees and screamed.

They all cried, mourning her and absolutely hating, that until the day she died, she had been a weapon. And that her death alone had made her a hero.

Pietro visited every day and spent hours beside her tube. Thor and Tony left the team and the Avengers were recreated. Steve didn't tell the team what he had found—specifically about the small list tucked away within Tess' things that detailed her dreams of what the team could be, members and their strengths and weaknesses.

Pietro Maximoff— _Quicksilver_

Wanda Maximoff— _Scarlet Witch_

She'd even written a small booklet, outlining how she believed the team could grow in strength and numbers with the addition of James Rhodes as _War Machine_ , Sam Wilson as _Falcon_ and, in a different coloured ink, _Vision_.

They became the new Avengers lead by Steve Rogers— _Captain America_ —and Natasha Romanoff as the ever lovely _Black Widow_.

No one ever mentioned the codenames Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Vision engraved into the doors of two spare rooms with blue ink—they didn't need to talk about the doors that now led to the rooms of the three newest members. They knew who placed them there, who named the Maximoff siblings as heroes, who accepted Vision as one of them before his loyalty was even confirmed.

The Avengers were all about working together and never losing hope. And sometimes, _just sometimes_ , not losing hope lets miracles occur.

Captain America let out a breath, light eyes analysing the new team as they stood in front of the balcony he was on. Tess would have been so damn proud and she'd never let Steve forget that she had been right about the goodness in the Maximoff twins' hearts and Vision.

"Avengers, a—"

And eyes, dubbed Tesseract-blue, opened. A smile tugged gently at her lips, followed by a single, whispered word in the icy confines of the cryogenic tube.

" _Assemble_ …"

 **XXXXX**

* * *

 **UNEDITED**

 **TESS IS NOT DEAD. I REPEAT, TESS IS NOT DEAD!**

 **Unfortunately, I am NOT going to be writing a sequel, as I've, sadly, lost a bit of interest in the story. I love Tess Rogers as a character but I kind of feel like I've lost what made her unique. I'm also a bit stressed that if I write a sequel, Tess is going to become a realMary Sue and I don't want that.**

 **So, as of now,** ** _Volatile_** **is complete and Tess and Pietro's story is over. But imagine the Happily Ever After they can have that won't be written because Tess is still alive.**

 **THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL OF YOU WHO SUPPORTED THIS STORY, I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH.** **THIS IS THE VERY LAST CHAPTER SO I WOULD LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT IF EVERYONE READING THIS LEFT A REVIEW AND JUST TOLD ME WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF THE BOOK AS A WHOLE AND HOW YOU LIKED THE EDITED VERSION. IT WOULD MEAN SO MUCH TO ME AND I'M SAYING THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!**

 **~ Raven**


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